For a while now I've wanted a nice vintage lever, and recently spotted this unusual Faemina. It's going to need a little work, really just the basics, but I thought I'd share my rebuild.

It comes with the original 110V elements, and is in good enough condition that it shouldn't require a major restoration (keeping my fingers crossed here!). It also has the original knock box. Its most unusual feature is the brass finish boiler, instead of the usual chrome. I haven't seen this variation before. Anyone else?

Nice find, I've never seen the brass finish, especially interesting that the corrugated wrap-around accent is also brass finish making me think that this wasn't just stripped down at some point from the chrome.

The seller did a thorough job of packing it, and it made it here safely.

A quick inspection reassured me that the brass finish on the boiler is original. There are signs of some brass plating on top of brass, or maybe a brass tinted lacquer, on the group and portafilter. Most of the machine seems to be unplated brass. The lever yoke is brass plating over chrome, and has worn to an ugly mix of brass plating, chrome, and naked steel. The shaft of the lever is normal chrome plated steel. Would have been better if they had done the entire lever that way.



The base is the usual peeling chrome over aluminum. I'm undecided about whether to strip it all of and polish the aluminum, or just tidy it up a bit. I saw a Faemina restoration on the German site, Kaffee-Netz, where they removed only the loose chrome and polished the exposed aluminum.

A quick look inside the boiler and no obvious ruptures in the elements. Really not much scale either. Descaling will be just for cosmetic reasons and maybe to date marks visible.



Filled the boiler with water and tried the lever. No leaks even with the old seals, and water dispenses normally and stops normally. New seals are on the way, of course, but maybe I won't have to wait to pull a first shot! The force on this lever is more than I imagined but seems smooth enough.

yakster wrote:...especially interesting that the corrugated wrap-around accent is also brass finish making me think that this wasn't just stripped down at some point from the chrome.

Yah, that was my concern too. Definitely some details that make it clear it's original though. Some brass plating over the solid brass on the group, and brass plating over chrome on the lever yoke.

Thanks for showing us this unusual Faemina, David. Since it is so collectible you may want to preserve the original stickers. It's also common to show patina instead of making it all look new. Also if the old seals don't leak there's no need to replace them until they stop working.

Interesting, that appears to be the very same faemina a friend of me tried to buy just last week (in the Netherlands)....the pictures are exactly the same as advertized, up to the sticker on the base.... the deal fell through as the seller did not want to make any patt of her name and address known and only wanted to ship after payment was made (reported as suspicious to the website it was listed on)

My thought was that someone messed up the chrome and it needed replating badly.

Great Find! It makes me wonder how many vintage levers are just sitting in someone's garage or attic collecting dust! If it were me, I would give it a good cleaning and pull some shots just to see where you are in terms of having to do a rebuild. It doesn't look like it has had a lot of abuse. I am looking forward to following your journey.

Les

Well, the faemina was made great numbers so there should be many hidden...30.000 copies were made...

But this one is apparently quite rare. I just wrote to Francesco Ceccarelli who tells me that he has never seen a brass one. He looked at this thread and believes it came from the factory this way, with the boiler not plated. That is a wonderful find!

After reassuring myself there were no obvious issues, it's time to check the heating elements. Measuring resistance at the plug while the MIN/MAX switch is on the low setting, I get a reading of 61 ohms. That's about 200W at 110V. On the MAX setting i get a reading of about 12.7 ohms, which is about 950W at 110V. So another concern, that I might have gotten a machine meant for 220V operation, but with a US style plug, seems unfounded. Sorry for the lousy pics. No good place to work at the moment.



Checked the resistance from either prong to the boiler. Seems there is a short to ground. I'll need to strip things down more to see what's what. Lets hope it's not a bad element. I'm a little hopeful because the short is there with no water in the boiler. Seems that both switches are working fine.