Germany pots Internet trophy

Coffee pots do not usually warrant international attention

CAMBRIDGE, England (CNN) -- The world's most famous coffee pot has been sold after spending 10 years in the spotlight on the Internet.

The machine is going to Hamburg after a decade being constantly surveyed by a Web cam at its Cambridge University base.

The Internet coffee pot gained cult status after computer students set up one of the world's first Web cams so they would always know when it was full.

The machine was located in a room some distance away from many of the coffee drinkers, who at the time were becoming increasingly frustrated at having to navigate several flights of stairs only to find it empty.

But a move of building rendered the coffee pot redundant and it was put up for sale at an online auction.

On Monday the famous percolator was bought for £3,350 ($4,771) by German news magazine Spiegel Online.

The new owners say it will occupy pride of place at the magazine's Hamburg offices and on its Web site.

Quentin Stafford-Fraser, the man behind the Web site, said initially the image was only updated about three times a minute, but that was fine because the pot filled rather slowly.

With the arrival of the Internet soon afterwards, the coffee pot became a Web superstar, attracting some 2.5 million visitors over the next decade.

Marching hand-in-hand with the High Street coffee-shop boom, it achieved world celebrity status, with one couple from America reportedly travelling to Cambridge to get a closer look.

"Once, some American tourists called into the tourist information centre in Cambridge and asked where the coffee pot was so they could visit it," Dan Gordon, a scientist at the universirty, told Reuters.

"They took lots of photos. It's not really very impressive though, it's just a coffee pot."

In their online sales pitch on the auction site eBay the students wrote: "Time moves on and we want to buy a shiny new espresso machine."

"We must warn you that the machine is broken possibly beyond repair. It leaks water, and we've cut off the mains plug," the students wrote.

A final picture of the coffee pot in its Cambridge University home -- with an inevitable sign saying "sold" -- can be seen at www.cl.cam.ac.uk/coffee/coffee.html.