I recently acquired a NOS unfired Optimus 00 from Mike at ‘The Base Camp’. This particular Optimus 00 has an interesting backstory, which I will hand over to Mike to tell and who kindly gave me his permission for the following to be published on CSS. From: Base Camp Sent: 24 June 2024 09:55 To: Phil Subject: Re: Last of the Optimus 00's Hello again, Hipolito manufactured parts and some complete items for both Optimus and Petromax as those manufacturers scaled down European production. Hipolito manufactured almost all of Optimus burners during the 1990's, these burners would have been marked 'Optimus'. During the 1990's Optimus discontinued all of the traditional paraffin stoves and cleared spares parts ready their move from the old works to a much smaller building on the outskirts of town. Early in 2000 a quantity of 00 stoves became available from Sweden in card boxes with limited packaging. My suspicion was that they were built up from available parts still on hand in wholesale stock at the time. However no 00 Optimus burners were available any more so burners from the recently closed Hipolito company were used. The fact that Hipolito made burners for Optimus meant the 00 burners were the same dimensions and threads as Optimus, just the name cast in the top was different. I purchased a quantity of complete and incomplete stoves and have been slowly releasing them over time.! Regards, Mike 'the stove' What came with this ‘end of line’ Optimus 00 was a ‘Hipolito’ burner, a spanner and the Optimus 00 cardboard box - but no wind shield and as it turns out, for very good reason. More about that later. During the latter production of the stove, Optimus contracted ‘The Metal Box Company’ in the U.K. to manufacture the following plain red tin for the U.K. market as customers still expected to stove to be sold with a tin…hence the stove had been marketed in the U.K as an ‘Optimus 00L’ , where the ‘L’ refers to ‘Låda’ which is Swedish for ‘box’. Mike had just one of these NOS red tins left which I was able to purchase from him and will use to house the stove in. Box photos - rotating the box from its right hand side anti-clockwise I thought it would be interesting to compare my much earlier Optimus 00L to this end-of-line model. As can be seen, the tins are very different in all respects. As I have reached the maximum 20 photos permitted on this thread, I will continue on a follow-on thread, ‘Optimus 00 - End of production model (Part 2 of 2) - Phil.
Very interesting. My avatar stove and along with the Svea/Sigg combo, my favorite. Especially interesting to hear about Hipolito's role in the later 00 history.
@Pharael Excellent interesting information, and a great score there it is nice to find a stove no matter what type of condition with its tin box in great condition well done there
I am presuming the lack of windshield is because of the giant primer cup? The flames would go outside the windshield? EDIT: Doh! Just read part 2!!!
@Blackdog Yes, the box does, but most likely that is because it pictures a 00 with the regular Primus burner/spirit cup fitted.
Given the fairly recent date of the stove they were on thin ice with the ever increasingly active trading standards!
Totally agree. I wonder how many of the ‘Hipolito’ Primus 00’s were retailed and then returned by angry customers demanding a refund.
Well Tilley removed their 'Made in England' labelling, eventually! And further back in time Svea went from the best to the king.....
Apologies for the side track. @Blackdog Tilley changed the stamping on their lamps from “Made in England” to “Made in United Kingdom” when they moved from London and started production in Northern Ireland in 1961. Some old stock was used after that date. Cheers Tony.
