My espresso/coffee equipment
pusher friend contacted me a couple of weeks ago.
He knew I had just purchased the Bezzera Family lever and wasn't looking to spend a chunk of money on another machine. He also knew, I think, that this machine was too special to pass up and he was right.
It's a mostly brass Conti Empress that was restored several years ago. The seller mentioned that the Empress had lived in the Bay area all of her life until my purchase. The first part of her life was in a café. I don't know much more. The seller estimated import date by Cara in the mid-1950s. She is big and heavy. I can tell that the brass was coated with something originally. Most of that is gone. I cleaned up a lot of the tarnish. It will take several sessions to get her perfectly shiny though. She appears to be in really good shape as far as I can tell.
I am waiting for a Flojet to arrive so I can run her from a water bottle and pull a shot. She, eventually will be plumbed in at my cabin in Arizona. Here are a few pictures (the last one taken by the seller since I really can't move the machine around too well by myself):
