A Very Unique Stove... Sweden, India & Japan in its heritage. An Elpar Stove with HITACHI markings..

I am from Western State of India.. Gujarat, I live in the city of Ahmedabad... Three days ago I picked up an old Kerosene stove from a scrap dealer.. primus stoves were very common in Indian households and used for cooking food till late 80s and early 90s... and we had one in our home, when I was in middle school... so I picked it up to surprise my mother and this stove was going for scrapping, so I kindaa saved it... When I cleaned it at home I was pleasantly surprised to find that it has a steel tank and had markings of the manufacturer Elpar, with Made in Sweden stamp... which is very unique for Indian market... even more surprising was that the Tank body had HITACHI marking and HITACHI old logo etched on it.... So it seems like this stove had parts made in Sweden, came to India as knocked down kit, got assembled in India, was shipped to Japan - Hitachi imported it -- etched it with its markings and was used by Hitachi employees in field postings. Sharing Pics below..... It will be nice to hear from primus stove enthusiast about this piece..... and if someone can throw some light on the history and heritage of such a piece.......

 

Welcome to CCS.

 

Interesting stove. I do note the nameplate on the side says "Original superior to any stove made in Sweden" The brand is either Original or Hitachi or a combination of these names. Burners do fail and get changed so that might not be original to the stove. The marking on the burner includes JPT special so I suspect its Japanese although there doesnt seem to be a math in the reference gallery. You might have something we havnt seen before

 

@Bhaskar Sharma Welcome Bhaskar and well done for rescuing an interesting stove.

Not in my collection, but one seen on an auction site bearing the same soldered-on name plate (‘Original’ brand) as your example.








‘Superior to any made in Sweden’ so not actualy of Swedish origin.

I’ve seen the ‘Superior to …’ appear on a fuel tank too, but poorly stamped with lettering misaligned, which somewhat undermines the bold claim.



John

 

SUPERIOR TO ANY
Separate from
MADE IN SWEDEN
???

 

The owners name is etched below in Gujarati language... Surname is Patel... if you send me a better photo of the Gujarati etching I will read the full name of the owner......

 

The most interesting part of the Stove I have is the HITACHI markings and its old logo on the Tank...... that actually gives this piece an interesting story... to be discovered.....

 

I also noted the ambiguity, but that pattern of top ring and relatively crude machining look pure Indian.

Interested in being proven wrong, but I'd hazard it's most likely an Indian stove with a Japanese brand name stamped on the tank without licencing, rather than an Indian stove with the tank outsourced to a Japanese manufacturer.

If a company as large as Hitachi were stamping out stove tanks with their name on, surely they would have made enough that there would be plenty of survivors.