italian-made 5gal soda keg, parts and type?

[rawlus]

i have been trying to find out more information on the italian-made 5 gal ball-lock kegs i see from most of the online vendors...but nobody seems to have a definitive answer. are these italian kegs cornelius style to accept type A or B posts and poppets or do they use a proprietary style that might be difficult to find or expensive to replace. can anyone tell me what parts match them if its not type A or B?

i would really like a few of these kegs for presentation purposes because they are clean and undented, but i dont want to get into them if i will need to source and maintain a separate supply of parts for them different from my regular cornelius soda kegs. posts & poppets, o-rings, lids and diptubes. are these cross-compatible with cornelius or a separate item and if separate, how available are these parts and at what cost?

does anyone know the manufacturer so maybe i can get info straight from the source?

grape&granary is selling "italian" posts and replacement lids for theirs, but most of the other big online homebrew sites do not list separate parts for their single-handle italian new kegs, many list them as italian corny kegs too. very confusing.

im hoping someone here has seen one in person or owns one and can shed some light on it for me.

i am assuming the 3gal italian kegs are cross-compatible with the 5gal ones (maybe i should not assume), and i bet more people have the 3 gal for use as a tailgate/party pig setup so maybe they can shed more light on manufacturer and parts availability?

thanks everyone for your help in advance.

 

[Tom]

They are called "Corny Kegs"
They have 2 types
Pepsi ( ball lock) most common..
Coke (Pin Lock)
They have a few manufactures the most common is Cornelius and Firestone.
If you look in the "classified" section I have them for sale.

 

[Malkore]

sometimes its a crapshoot. its best when you can worth with a seller (like Tom) who can tell you "the ones I"m selling are Firestone pin-lock" or "are cornelius II knock offs".

I haven't really seen people get kegs that won't take the different posts (i.e. the threading seems pretty universal). Finding lids if its an abnormal lid shape, replacement pressure release/safety valves, and new poppets would probably be your only real challenge, and there's places that sell both.

 

[rawlus]

the kegs i am talking about are italian-made ball-lock kegs - i've heard back from some of the retailers now and it appears Type B posts will fit on some of them, others require special non-standard poppets. lids and pressure relief valves seem to be interchangeable with standard pepsi corny kegs.

for those who are unfamiliar with the italian ones, they look like this...