Good morning I have an early Primus 210 stove that has an unusual date stamp on it. Has anyone here seen one before like this? it appears to be a D with a strange font E over the top? Any help on this would be greatly appreciated Aaron
bump re how and at what point of production did Primus date stamp occur. i *"think" i know. @Spiritburner please chime-in i took liberty to post this "discussion" (Q&A chat) here vs reference section. IF i had a confirmed answer i would gladly offer that in a reference post. I do not know for certain. We might learn more here. re @Lighthouse "quote" [[my input]] "regarding the pre-1911 210 and it's date-stamp or rather lack thereof, [[ the 210: Catch of the day, early Primus discussion results in that being the only known pre-1911 No.210]] "i'd like to discuss the process of date-stamping. [[ **me too]] "are we certain the letter marking was stamped after the main bottom stamp was done? [[*"i think" NO, in almost all cases the 2 pieces of brass (top & bottom) were stamped before being joined with top of tank. This true also, imo, for the double stamp example above]]... "could a primus co-worker have forgotten to apply the date stamp?" [[can i reword this.. am i still on-point? could a primus co-worker have forgotten to stamp the bottom piece? [[sure, yes. There is a but, but i also would "think" such stoves would be caught by time of final assembly (quality check) before being packaged. Caveat for that comment: pre 1972 stoves. After approx 1972 gradually various steps of production changed and quality gradually diminished.]] ------- **i would like to hear if Ross has an explanation of the process, best of his knowledge. After/if we hear from Ross (Mr Primus lol). Then we know with certainty others are familiar with this type of production but specifically >>tanks were stamped on top, sides & bottom. What were the steps, re stamping the brass, that Primus (Optimus, Svea & Radius) were doing 1900-1940+? to the best of our knowledge.
and perhaps another important question - why did primus date-stamp their tanks in the first place? and besides, how accurate was quality control during this period (circa 1908-1911)? as long as the correct product number and logos were stamped i think any product would have passed quality control even with a faulty date stamp. with so many standardized parts (in most cases all the way up until the late 1960s, with the burner-to-tank screw the only notable exception), it wouldn't really have mattered if a date stamp was off by a year or two, since parts were so readily available. playing the devil's advocate here - i'm just making sure our claim of a pre-1911 primus 210 stove holds! there's literature to suggest it was available alongside the 230 in 1912, perhaps being the only year. the 210 is not in the sole 1911 catalogue we have on our site and the 230 had disappeared from the catalogs in 1914. @OMC @Spiritburner @igh371 @kerophile
they went to the trouble of date-stamping them, so it wasn't unimportant, I just think they relied more heavily on function than period-correctness or having stamped the correct letter.
I don't think the over-stamped examples have anything to do with having stamped a wrong letter. Almost all examples we know relate to one year's letter being over-stamped with the following year letter*. The inference being that over-production of tanks one year, and there are very few years when this seems to have been done, was over-stamped with a correction when carried over to be used the next year. If anything this seems to suggest that having the correct stamping was viewed as having particular importance. (*I believe there are a couple of examples of soldering equipment apparatus where tanks produced one year were carried over to be over-stamped more than one year later.)
As has been discussed before, parts may have been carried over to the next year, or the bottom of a parts bin was finally gotten to. Don’t know if misstamped bottoms would have been scrapped and melted down. How important was QA back 100 years ago concerning a date? As mentioned above, buyers would have been only concerned if a stove worked, not so much as to correct date. Over stamped would have been a very minor point, many businesses would be more concerned about their bottom line. Duane PS: Over stamped went on for years, look in the SRG at how many Primus 96 stoves from 1912, 1913 (B,C) were over stamped.
Instances where the year of manufacture letter stamp has then been over-stamped is for me, evidence of a level of quality control that was important to Primus. Pharael.
The fact that Primus felt it very important to ensure the correct manufacturing/assembly year appeared on the stove makes one wonder if the stamping directly underneath it, did relate to a specific assembly workstation for a combined purpose which related to a number of specific quality and quantity control measures, for both in-house and post sale. Pharael.
Stating the obvious Primus, Optimus, Svea & Radius did not do any engraving on brass tanks. All markings were stamped into brass. Ross @Spiritburner, @igh371, all, i agree w/Ian & Phareal along lines of "If anything this [correcting the date stamp, such as in OP] seems to suggest that having the correct stamping was viewed as having particular importance." Scrapping a stove w/any quality issue was no great loss, once stripped for parts, the loss was just 2 pcs of brass. Sorry for bringing in Trevor input after he has passed, but he was the source of any understanding i had. He and i researched bottom stamping long ago, discussion both open post and PMs. During that Trevor researched the processes of stamping into brass (stamping the flat sheet into tank form AND stamping the lettering etc.). From that point, for our discussions, Trevor had definitive answers re process advancing our topic. He did not withhold his sources, it didnt come up, he had the answers. I do hold impression: in almost all cases the 2 pieces of brass (top & bottom) were final-stamped as separate pcs before being joined. "This true also, imo, for the double stamp example above" Curious where @igh371 lands w/that ^^^ For example the production line is making change to the next year, there is stack of left over tank bottoms, the bottoms would have date stamp corrected before being joined w/top. All stamping completed before top & bottom are joined. My impression. BTW Radius, another example, LTD on top but not on bottom, indicates 2 pcs stamped apart, not as one tank (OR one would think, more likely LTD added to both top & bottom, while they were at it). noteworthy Trevor probably also had a grasp of how tank sides and curved/shapely pcs were stamped... i have NO idea, that part of the process he and I did not discuss. Reminder all, My impression of process seems logical to me (knowing: Logic is a systematic method of coming to the wrong conclusion with confidence.) I do not know for sure and very interested in what Ross's understanding is, best of his knowledge. ---------- PS related gieorgi (we miss him), @igh371, have discussed how master craftsman / artisans, create steel master dies of logo etc used to then stamp many many tanks but that does not speak to the step by step sequence. BTW these were most talented of artisans creating highest quality beautiful products. IMO quality checks were also kept to very high standard.
That is exactly how I see it. Looking at the examples we have, the correcting letter stamp on the tank base piece was done by hand, presumably with the base component held on some sort of shaped dolly to prevent it being dented in. The hit would have had to have been quite sharp given the depth of some of the over-stamp impressions. On a fully assembled tank that would have been more than sufficient to seriously deform the base dome around the mark; and we do not see that.
Thinking outside the box. If the stove was filled with fuel, or hydraulic fluid, and then the stamp was stamped would there be an indented tank?
