diff --git a/scrapy/contrib/itemsampler.py b/scrapy/contrib/itemsampler.py
deleted file mode 100644
index 53ca2db17..000000000
--- a/scrapy/contrib/itemsampler.py
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,108 +0,0 @@
-"""
-This module provides a mechanism for collecting one (or more) sample items per
-spider.
-
-The items are collected in a dict of guid->item and persisted by pickling that
-dict into a file.
-
-This can be useful for testing changes made to the framework or other common
-code that affects several spiders.
-
-It uses the scrapy stats service to keep track of which spiders are already
-sampled.
-
-Settings that affect this module:
-
-ITEMSAMPLER_FILE
-  file where to store the pickled dict of scraped items
-ITEMSAMPLER_CLOSE_SPIDER
-  wether to close the spider after enough products have been sampled
-ITEMSAMPLER_MAX_RESPONSE_SIZE
-  maximum response size to process
-"""
-
-from __future__ import with_statement
-
-import cPickle as pickle
-
-from scrapy.xlib.pydispatch import dispatcher
-
-from scrapy.core.manager import scrapymanager
-from scrapy.exceptions import NotConfigured
-from scrapy import signals
-from scrapy.utils.response import response_httprepr
-from scrapy.stats import stats
-from scrapy.http import Request
-from scrapy import log
-from scrapy.conf import settings
-
-items_per_spider = settings.getint('ITEMSAMPLER_COUNT', 1)
-close_spider = settings.getbool('ITEMSAMPLER_CLOSE_SPIDER', False)
-max_response_size = settings.getbool('ITEMSAMPLER_MAX_RESPONSE_SIZE', )
-
-class ItemSamplerPipeline(object):
-
-    def __init__(self):
-        self.filename = settings['ITEMSAMPLER_FILE']
-        if not self.filename:
-            raise NotConfigured
-        self.items = {}
-        self.spiders_count = 0
-        self.empty_spiders = set()
-        dispatcher.connect(self.spider_closed, signal=signals.spider_closed)
-        dispatcher.connect(self.engine_stopped, signal=signals.engine_stopped)
-
-    def process_item(self, spider, item):
-        sampled = stats.get_value("items_sampled", 0, spider=spider)
-        if sampled < items_per_spider:
-            self.items[item.guid] = item
-            sampled += 1
-            stats.set_value("items_sampled", sampled, spider=spider)
-            log.msg("Sampled %s" % item, spider=spider, level=log.INFO)
-            if close_spider and sampled == items_per_spider:
-                scrapymanager.engine.close_spider(spider)
-        return item
-
-    def engine_stopped(self):
-        with open(self.filename, 'w') as f:
-            pickle.dump(self.items, f)
-        if self.empty_spiders:
-            log.msg("No products sampled for: %s" % " ".join(self.empty_spiders), \
-                level=log.WARNING)
-
-    def spider_closed(self, spider, reason):
-        if reason == 'finished' and not stats.get_value("items_sampled", spider=spider):
-            self.empty_spiders.add(spider.name)
-        self.spiders_count += 1
-        log.msg("Sampled %d spiders so far (%d empty)" % (self.spiders_count, \
-            len(self.empty_spiders)), level=log.INFO)
-
-
-class ItemSamplerMiddleware(object):
-    """This middleware drops items and requests (when spider sampling has been
-    completed) to accelerate the processing of remaining spiders"""
-
-    def __init__(self):
-        if not settings['ITEMSAMPLER_FILE']:
-            raise NotConfigured
-
-    def process_spider_input(self, response, spider):
-        if stats.get_value("items_sampled", spider=spider) >= items_per_spider:
-            return []
-        elif max_response_size and max_response_size > len(response_httprepr(response)):  
-            return []
-
-    def process_spider_output(self, response, result, spider):
-        requests, items = [], []
-        for r in result:
-            if isinstance(r, Request):
-                requests.append(r)
-            else:
-                items.append(r)
-
-        if stats.get_value("items_sampled", spider=spider) >= items_per_spider:
-            return []
-        else:
-            # TODO: this needs some revision, as keeping only the first item
-            # may lead to differences when performing replays on sampled items
-            return requests + items[0:]