Really, the Corona and Victoria grinders are virtually identical, both of them being made by Corona, in Columbia, South America. The biggest difference between these two grinders is the Victoria costs an extra $20.00. All the important parts come from the same mold.I really have nothing good to say about these grinders. On the first grind with the burrs set as tightly as I could set them and still be able to crank the handle, the grinder barely cracked the wheat. In fact, a few kernels were still whole. On the second run, the grinder broke the wheat down a little further to the point of cracked wheat. Running the cracked wheat through more times didn’t improve the grind. I’ve read posts on the different forums from people who say they have made bread from the wheat they ground in a Corona. Me, I’d really like to see what that pitiful bread must have looked like. It had to be as heavy as a rock.
This grinder can not be mounted on your kitchen counter like all the other grinders in the study. This is because there are protruding ridges on the bottom of the mount that are designed to sink down into the soft wood of a board. I mounted it to a 2X8 for the grinding test and the mount did hold it very securely to the board. While I was tightening the clamp, I got a hammer and tapped rather heavily on the mount, trying to set the ridges down into the board. On the first strike of the hammer I broke a corner off the mount. I didn’t hit it that hard! The frame of the Corona is made of cast iron, and not particularly good of cast iron.
The Corona has a thin plating on the outside which is probably chrome. This plating is also on the burr faces and worm feed. This is a real problem because the cracked wheat that comes out of the grinder has an occasional metal flake in it. The chrome may very well be a recent improvement to keep the grinder from rusting. In doing my research, I talked with a lady whose father sold hundreds of these things several years ago. She said she remembers seeing dozens of Coronas in the back room rusting away.
The Corona wasn’t made for grinding wheat, even though hundreds of them have been sold for this purpose. They were made to grind field corn. It’s amazing how many of these grinders can be found. They have been sold all over North and South America for at least the last 30 years.
The Corona Grinder pushed those 10 cups of wheat through the grinder in about 5 minutes. The problem, as I’ve already pointed out, was that it didn’t grind it. Because of this, I’ve put N/A (Not Applicable) in the Corona’s columns for efficiency in the Grinder Performance Table. It’s impossible to compare the efficiency of a grinder that won’t do what the other grinders accomplish.