Hi all, im totally new here and totally new to all those lovely stoves. To begin with i bought 3 No12 stove for me and my friends. Here are some unboxing photos http://www.flickr.com/photos/alexguzun/sets/72157628474013283/detail/ I got two boxes and one All 3 are the same, except packaging date and stickers with instructons. Strange thing, 2 boxes with same date has different stickers inside, but same serial number (or what is it, on the upper part of the stove) placement. TOC Douple Burner Cooker No 12 the third box has the serial placement on the other (left front) side, also it is shorter but with Cooker No 12 sticker inside nothing special but differences i saw and wanted to post it somewere. Alex
Probably just cosmetic differences. I know the first 2 numbers to the right of the NATO broadarrow denotes the year of manufacture (∧00, ∧04 etc). How do they run? I bought one recently that has a very one sided flame pattern.
The stoves are the same. The numbers on the boxes and on the stoves are NATO Stock Numbers (NSN). The full NSN for this stove is 7310-99-252-7439. NSNs are used by all NATO countries plus some others. 7310 is the Federal Supply Code (FSC). ie..the group of equipment types that the item falls within. In this case, 7310 is 'Food Cookery, Bakery and Serving Equipment'. 99 is the country code. This is the code for listing country - usually the country of manufacture. 99 is the code for the UK. This is a partial list: USA 00 to 09 Germany 12 Belgium 13 France 14 Italy 15 Czech Republic 16 Netherlands 17 South Africa 18 Brazil 19 Canada 20 and 21 Denmark 22 Greece 23 Iceland 24 Norway 25 Portugal 26 Turkey 27 Luxemburg 28 Argentina 29 Japan 30 Israel 31 Singapore 32 Spain 33 Malaysia 34 Thailand 35 Egypt 36 Republic of Korea 37 Estonia 38 Romania 39 Slovakia 40 Austria 41 Slovenia 42 Poland 43 United Nations 44 Indonesia 45 Phillipines 46 Lithuania 47 Fiji 48 Tonga 49 Bulgaria 50 Hungary 51 Chile 52 Croatia 53 Macedonia 54 Latvia 55 Oman 56 Australia 66 Saudi Arabia 70 United Arab Emirates 71 New Zealand 98 United Kingdom 99 I'm not sure if it was intentional that the 66 code for Australia is the 99 code for the UK but upside down! 2527439 identifies the specific item and can sometimes be alpha numeric. The number has no codified meaning. The number is unique within the FSC group. The system allows for up to 10,000,000 items within each FSC group. The are millions of NSNs. Sometimes, as in the case of one of the stoves, only the last part of the number is used. TOC is 'Tools of Coventry', the people who made the stove. The next two digits are the year of manufacture. Then the NSN.
Martyn, Regarding the one-sided flame pattern. Unless the jet is damaged, the most usual reason for the uneven flame pattern that I've experienced on the 12's is that the burner plate is off-centre to the fuel stream. Top down visual inspection will usually show this and a simple fix entails slightly adjusting the plate legs so it sits dead centre over the jet, whilst also ensuring it is level. Cheers, Graham.
You bought three of them! I bought one of them as well. I was kind of hoping to get one with the writing on the tank, but it wasn't to be. I still have to wait until Xmas day to fire mine up, but as the tube between the burner and the tank was bent around like a banana, I may have some adjustment to do first. Edit.. My serial numbers stretch well over half way across the case. I'll grab a photo sometime over the next few days.
Here you go. It would appear that mine is an 06 stove in an 03 box, so I guess that someone out there has an 03 stove in an 06 box.
The bushcraftstore in the UK sells NOS for 129£. They were on Ebay, but you can order them thru there site also.
Sadly Ebay, but prices vary considerably. A few months ago I saw a new one sell for either £74.00 or £79.00 (I can't remember which) then just a couple of weeks ago a very used looking one went for £194.00 There is no logic with Ebay. Mine was a Xmas pressie.