Looking for info on a Coleman 4F Stove I inherited

Hello. . . All
I am new to the forum, and was hoping I could get some info from you vetran Coleman Stove collectors.
I have searched the net endlessly, and cannot find any information on this 4F coleman stove, other then it was made 1931 - 1937. I could not even find any pictures of 4F's.

The stove still has all the original labels attached, and considering it's age, it is in Excellent condition.

I would really appreciate any info as to where I can find information, rareity, and possibly value of the stove.

THANKS IN ADVANCE FOR ANY INFO OR ADVICE YOU CAN GIVE ME.

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Wow. Nuff said, what a beautifully preserved stove you have there! It is almost identical and probably the predecessor to the 417b shown here
http://terrence.marsh.faculty.noctrl.edu/lantern/colestovespre1945.html
About 3/4 of the way down. If I find anything on it, I'll toss another post up, but daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayum, that's a sweet lookin stove!

 

Please examine this stove with a very critical eye. There are things about it which lead me to balieve it may not be what it says on the lable. Mind, i am not saying it is not a 4F however certain aspects of this stove suggest it is "rebranded". Among these items are the colour of the fuel tank. And the colour of the stove it's self.

All information i have suggests the 4F had a Maroon Brown fuel tank. In addition i believe this stove should be painted black in colour. Again the information i have suggests this.

If, after you have examined the stove and found the colours i'm suggesting, or not found them, then i'm willing to acknowledge there may be certain changes which are not in my information packet.

lance

 

Nice looking 4F as VDC pointed out there Dave. I'm not sure how rare it would be. Someone may be along shortly to help in that regard.

As far as valuation, your best bet is to list it on eBay and see what you can get for the stove.

Unless you want to keep it for sentimental value, a memory of a departed relative and all that. In which case, it's worth what you'd be willing to accept to part with it.

Have you fired the lovely up yet? I'm sure we'd all like to see a picture of that! We like pictures. 8)

Welcome aboard!

Cheers,
Gary

 

Hey . . . Lance
I looked at the stove and the tank VERY carefully, and there is NO paint beneath what is seen in the pictures. Bare metal is beneath both. SO what does that mean ?? Are you saying the 4F was never made in these colors ??

Interesting for sure, as I am CERTAIN after close inspection that the paint is all original.

I am amazed I cannot find a picture of another 4F on the net . . . . . .

I am fairly confident it does, but just to make sure . . . does this burn standard white gas ?? I may see if I can fire it up. . . . It's a coleman, it is sure to work !!! :-)

 

Hey BernieDawg & VooDuuChild . . . Thanks for the compliments, as you seem as amazed as I was when I first seen it as to how good of condition it is in after some 78 years.

Not sure as of yet what I am going to do with the stove, at this point i am intriged at the lack of information on it on the net, as there is a sea of info on everything else colman :-) Old and new

Dave

 

Hi Dave: They made the 4F in several color configurations from 1931-1937. Yours is 100% correct, but is a late 4F probably 1937. Earlier versions were indeed brown and maroon as well as all black. Nice stove!!! Mike...

 

Hello . . . Flivver
Thanks for the info

Can anyone tell me Why is it there are NO pictures and info available on the net for this stove ?? Is it a rare stove ??

Also, in my endless searching, I have come across price guides for most all other vintage coleman products, but am unable to locate any "value" collectability information on this one . . . seems odd

 

It's worth whatever anyone's willing to pay. It's really hard to tell. I'd imagine less than $100 shipped would be a safe bet. Probably in the neighborhood of seventy-eighty shipped....this is of course speculative and could go for more if the right people were watching it. Always a crap shoot with auctions.

 

So is Ebay how you guys value your coleman collectables, or is there a price guide ??

Ebay does not seem like the best basis for value, for as you say it is a crap shoot. . . . Especially if there is and has been no similar ones auctioned to base a value on.

It just stikes me odd that this stove has no info / pictures etc. considering the net is full of information as I said prior . . . . . . . Seem the lack of info and pictures would make it a rarer stove, but I am no specialist / collector so I don't know . . . . .

 

Its as VooDuuChild said, It's worth whatever anyone's willing to pay. Most people who congregate on this forum are as the title says, collectors and enthusiasts. No stove has a price tag that is set in stone but in the US there are quite a few coleman dealers, why not try one or two of those. If someone wants a stove enough they will pay as much as they can afford to get it.

 

Dave: In my travels I have seen more of your model color then the earlier ones. How ever that's about a dozen stoves in forty years. (I have not looked for them on E-bay). I don't think it is odd at all that there is not a picture of every stove model of every manufacture and every model variation, as I think the internet would overload, ha ha. Very few pre WW11 stoves are "common". Mike...

 

One of the things I really like about collecting stoves is that there isn't any "price guide". There's nothing worse, imho, than having some bozo tell me the beat up piece junk (missing parts and in need of huge repairs) he has is worth so many hundreds of dollars "becuz the guide sez so".

Or, alternatively, being asked how much I paid, then having the questioner say, "well, you sure blew it on that deal 'cause the guide sez blah, blah, blah."

Three cheers for stoving!

Cheers,
Gary

 

Welcome.
I could give you a list longer than both your arms of stoves you won't find pics of on the internet - some of them are rare & valuable, some are rare but so crap they hardly have any value & a lot would fall inbetween.


Ebay is a great place to gauge value - but value goes up & down. It's great for gauging the value on the world-wide market - not just locally. These are not commodities that can be valued with a fixed price - value is always going to be subjective & can vary depending on the market.

If you paid for it how much did you pay? How did you decide it was good value for money?

To a Coleman collector that hasn't got one it will be worth far more than it would to Joe Public or to someone like me. I'm a stove collector but this doesn't ring my bells so my perception of it's value will be low.

If you want to sell it you could put it on ebay with a very high reserve & see what the bids come in for - that will give you an idea how much people will pay. If it doesn't make your reserve try again & drop the reserve to below the highest bid recieved previously

 

in reply to Lance:
I, too, have a 4F, dating from about 1936. when i got it, the tank (which was abused beyond use) was black. The original paint/finish is green, as the one in the original post. i just wish mine looked as good as that one, it's very nice.
here is some other info:
https://classiccampstoves.com/posts/76958

every once in a while i will search for 4F's on the auction sites. I do not see them for sale very often.
Jon

 

Well I would like to thank you all for the info. I pondered it for awhile, and talked with the better half, and we decided this great old stove deserves to be in a collection, and NOT in our garage, so I have decided to have "a friend" put it up for sale on ebay. If you are interested search for coleman 4f stove. Will be fun to see where it goes. . . . as it is in impeccable condition considering it's 75 year + age.

Thanks again to all that replied, and I wish you all a happy / safe and prosperous life.

 

Wow. I never saw that coming.

http://cgi.ebay.com/RARE-1931-COLEMAN-4F-Stove-Amazing-Cond-Tuff-Find-VTG_W0QQitemZ280326475085QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item280326475085&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=66%3A2|65%3A10|39%3A1|240%3A131Spokane Daves eBay listing[/url]

Later,
Gary

 

Hey, Dawg,

Ya' THINK????? Yeah, that one was as plain as could be, wasn't it?!! Oh, well..... each to his own, eh? Best of luck to the seller, and to whomever ends up paying for this one. I have a nice 3H, which was comtemporary to, or slightly older than, this fellows 4H, and I got mine for $25. That's a nice cup of tea, even though mine is not in as fine a condition as his stove. Take care, and God Bless!

Every Good Wish,
Doc

P.S. Don't ya' just LOVE the "yeah, I know, but what's it WORTH??" sorts of questions??

 

I new what he was after that is why I wrote

In his first post he was asking for a valuation.

I am quite sure I read somewhere on this site that we do not do valuations.
If one of us had an item for sale or had been offered to buy an item we new little about it would make sense to try and find out more about it. If he had said he was not a collector but had a stove for sale he new little about and needed our help would he have got the answers he wanted.