How Long Have You Been Collecting Stoves?

I was given from my grandfather a Optmus brass one pint stove when I was about 14. My father thought it was too much of a fiddle to start as he did not won’t it, I used it regularly, from then I was a lost cause.
My collection is anything old that takes my fancy. Although I have many stoves I like old camping gear too. You can guess my age now.
Cheers
Rob
Ps, the Optimus stove was bought by my grandfather in 1924 , I have most of his camping gear some I use regularly. The Optmus stove was to go with his new 1924 Essex which had a camping body and a lean to tent. The tent is still in good shape, I use it a bit , it goes on my 1924 Rugby tourer.

 

I got my first camping stove, as a gift, in 1967, when I was 9. The brand was GasPak (New Zealand made) and it used a disposable aerosol-type container of butane. I did not know it then that I was addicted to stoves. Things all started in earnest in 1974 when I bought my first stove, a Gaz Bleuet S200 I think it was called, using the pierceable Bleuet container of butane. I bought my Optimus 8R stove in 1975. I discovered different stoves had different attributes, some better for outdoor cooking, some more convenient for indoor cooking. The best stove I have ever had, and still have is a Coleman 400 Peak 1 (brown), bought in 1983. It has literally saved "my bacon" in winter, and helped me climb mountains too.

Discovering this site in 2010, after the Christchurch earthquake, and the subsequent disastrous one in February 2011 certainly fostered my hobby of stove collection, which equals about 28 now.

Cheers
Simon Foxxx

 

Awesome guys, thanks for responding.

 

(warning..incoming lies) I was born long ago when medical sterilization stoves were still in use. The moment that I was plucked from my mothers womb the doctor picked up a hot knife off the flames of an old stove to cauterized the umbilical cord. I swiped that stove on my way to the towel. Legend has it that the good doctor was still looking for that stove on my thirty'ith birthday. HA HA HA..no really ..about a year or so.

 

Using/collecting kinda run together for me. I was using Gaz stuff back in the 70's and 80's (had LOTS of diff things they made), and had a Coleman 502 that almost never saw action, and a odd Sterno thing, and some homemade alcy stuff.
When it became obvious that Gaz was not gonna be around --maybe late 90's, early 2000ish???--- I decided to make the 502 run right, and then wanted different options, and a few years later ended up here eventually, then over at CCF too.
So I would say the real collecting, if 20 odd stoves counts as collecting, been about 15 years.

 

For me, it all started back in late 2010, when I visited an auction in my neck of the woods.
Spotted a Primus 1020 lantern and went ahead and bought it. Did some researching and found the company also manufactured stoves. Didn't take long for me to find my first stove, a Primus 71, featured in this gallery post: 1939 (AD) Primus 71 Nickel. Got it for less than a dollar!

 

i've always loved wet fuel camp stoves. starting withe big green suit case as a kid. i enjoyed using that tempormental thing. when my aunt saw i was intterested in camping. she gave me a old camping in he wilderness book. it may of been something from the nat/geo. i still have it. in it they had a svea 123 winter camping. i've always wanted one since i was 14ish. i had a few prropane stoves and those seem to get tossed after a few years. years later i picked up a coleman exponet dual fuel and used it hard. till the cleaning wire let go. fixed it/ so then its time for a whisper light. i melted a pump, replaced it. about 25 years after i started out. my wife gave a svea 123r model. just recently i acquired my first real 123 and absolutely love it. so that puts me at about 30 years of stove love.

if i could only have one stove its the 123. now i watch ebay, looking for a cheap one. that i can rebuild and give to a youth and change their lives.

 

About 15 years ago I chanced upon a Svea 123R, in box, at a yard sale. Asking price was $10. I passed on it, thinking “I‘ve got my 8R, why would I ever need another stove?” Right.....

Basil

 

Just started in this month May, saw the Optimus 111 stove from the YouTube video, and start collecting them, where do you guys find the vintage camp stove at? So far all my Optimus 111 bought it from eBay.

 

I started collecting before there was an eBay, and the answer is, you collect them where you can find them.

....Arch

 

Was gifted a few, then started purchasing on eBay. Found an Optimus 99 at an antique mall once. Try to find them elsewhere, other than eBay, to get them cheaper, but they're fairly rare to find. eBay is the quick fix, but most times you overpay, unless you're fortunate enough to get one cheap with the buy it mow option.

 

I had a coleman peak 1 I think it was, (brown with holes in the fold out feet) stove back in the late 70's and a single mantle lamp when I was touring/camping/going to bike shows and rallies, on motorcycles, I chose coleman because I could fill each one from the petrol from my bike tank.

Loved the lamp and stove, but as time passes sold them on, did lots of other things, and went to lots of other countries to work. I still remember that lamp, and after all this time, late last year I found a twin mantle lamp on ebay and restored it. ( I have a house in France and wanted it for my barn as I was installing power in it at the time)

I then bought a tilley lamp (kerosene) and restored that... then a vapalux 300x from the 1940s... then a other, then another, then a vapalux bowl fire and restored that... then more tilleys, and another Vapalux....

I then remembered the stove, the coleman petrol stove, and I wanted another stove.... This time I found the brass primus type that caught my eye and had already experience with restoring lamps so...

Oh dear.... nine lamps, one Heater, four stoves, and now a blow lamp. When does it end... (doesn't does it!)

So all in all about 18 months.

 

In the Summer of '03, whilst on a camping holiday in the Lake Ditrict, my wife bought me a Primus No.97 to potter about with. Unfortunately it was incomplete, and in my internet search for possible sources of spare parts I came across Classic Camp Stoves.
And here I am.

 

Got it, thank you! @ArchMc

 

I started on September the 2nd 1979. My 14th birthday I used my birthday money and savings to buy a Shinabro 340, which I still have. Been picking them up ever since and the odd lantern. I would estimate about 400 stoves give or take a few, of all types, the ability to make and drink tea fascinated me still to this day and outside you need a stove to do it. I must admit I have several boxes in the attic and at the back of the shed that haven't seen the light of day for a while but I have a rough idea what's in them and I'll get to them at some point. Came across CCS while looking for a washer, then never left.

Si

 

400, dang.

 

And I thought I had a lot of stoves. Ha!

Ben

 

I think the jury's still out on exactly how many you do have, Ben.

....Arch

 

I started collecting coins and lost interest some years after Australia went decimal currency, in 1966. Around 1974 my father gave me some prized kerosene appliances such as stoves (Parasene and Lane's Thermil), blowlamps, and a favorite Tilley which I used camping. In 1976 an Optimus 99 was added and then I started collecting in earnest around 1980 with a Borde 33 followed by a Coleman 220B. A good but demanding hobby.

 

@Sedgman

Where did you pick up the Borde?

Tony