I am not some much of a collector as much as I am a user. I am starting to have a collection of stoves that I use backpacking after my older ones break and need replacing. After finding CCS my older stoves are getting a new life. That made me think, how did most of you get started. Did you just find something unique at a yard sell that made you curios that started it, or are you someone that just collects one brand or one trait that you grew up with.
I bought a new Optimus 45 in 1972 and an Optimus 535 around 1980. I didn't start collecting until I found this website a few years ago and discovered how many wonderful old stoves were out there. I had no idea of the variety of stoves and number of makers. What makes collecting stoves so much fun is that I can take them out and use them from time to time. Kids, fire, food... at 64 I still haven't grown up. BTW, there's no rhyme nor reason to my collection. I just buy stoves that strike my fancy. Ben
I worked at a couple of gear shops that both had a "boneyard" of old stoves in the back that were used for servicing customer stoves. Lots of SVEA 123R, Optimus 8R, Coleman 400 & MSR. Both of those shops were eventually relocated and the store managers did not want to bring over what was considered junk. I was told I could take as much as I wanted and I did! I never thought about collecting then and had I known then what I know now I would have grabbed every last part. The rarest part I still have from that haul is the MSR white pump. I also got a few nice customer donations who wanted to see their stoves, lanterns, climbing gear, etc go to a good home. Next, I stumbled across this site and now I'm ruined. Jerry
I became a collector by accident. I grew up in WW2 and you could not buy much. If something broke or you stopped using it you put it on a shelf in case it could be cannibalised or repaired to be used later. My brothers stove was the first one I used and saved. Then I got a 96 which was nice and compact and ŵas ideal for cycle camping. I then moved onto petrol stoves which at the time clogged up with the speed of light when you used leaded petrol. I then got a motorbike and had more space for gear so went back to using my brothers paraffin stove and put my petrol stoves on the shelf. I noticed that spares were becoming difficult to find so I started buying old stoves for spare parts. After dismantling them and putting the parts away for spares I realised that there were numerous makes and models so I reassembled the stoves and actively went looking for different makes and models
For me it all started out with a penny alcohol stove I made for backpacking. Amazingly after making a few of them it has been the first one that I carried and still use today to make an espresso at home. Then I decided to do a Google search on backpacking stoves. This forum came up..the rest is history. I guess you can say I'm a collector who likes to use all his stoves. None are "stored" away. However I'm finding it harder and harder to show them all some love, that's why I've kept my collection at 23.
Scouts and fishing trips as a teenager lead to my downfall. Used 96s and trangia for backpacking trips back then but only had the T27K and a couple of tilley lamps to show for it until I settled down and had a few family camps before getting dragged back into scouts a decade or so ago. Kind of exploded a bit since then. Hankering after the old days but also the convenience of more up to date means I've added 96 and 210 size brassies, coleman 400 and decendant, small gassies and larger ones plus 123R and coil burner ....... I'd probably have more if the finances allowed. Oh, and this place has a lot to answer for! (I daren't sign up for CPL). Good question. Regards John
I started a few years ago after finding one at a boot sale that reminded me of my days camping with my mum and dad, I found this site got it running and that was it hooked! I love the hunt as much as fettling. Cheers Nick
Well.... I've used Paraffin and Petrol (yes, naive) Blowlamps since my early teens for slackening bolts/machinery/farm&industrial maintenance and for hard-soldering fittings/repairing radiators etc. Supplimented in later years with a gas axe.... I've also been exposed to wick lamps and Tilley lamps from an early age. We have a family holiday house on an Island which is utterly off-grid. Cue the tilleys/wickies and gassies. The stove thing started with a couple of Army No.2 Mk2s and a Primus No.5 (beetroot boiling!), I have had for many years, along with gassies for picnics. When I started getting back into hillwalking, out went the gas cannister nonsense and in came a Monitor 17B, followed by a Radius 20. I knew George (@kerophile ) was a fan, I acquired a Bowlfire/Tilley amalgam and asked him some advice, he gave great advice and pointed me in this direction with the dire warning "DON'T START COLLECTING STOVES". In fairness my first love will always be Tilley Lamps (Hand Lamps in particular) and I have a fair collection. I am more of a user than a collector of stoves/lamps, yet I've filled in a few blanks out of the spark of interest. They appeal to my engineering background, ideal examples of form and function borne out of necessity and invention in one neat package. The Army No.2 led to a No.3, a Hydra Burner and an 8R. The brassies then spread from there. I now have an extensive collection of Hydra-related gear, I am working on the history/use of them and not afraid to put it to work regularly! In this sense I am a collector! I pick up interesting items now and again but never buy a stove for the sake of buying a stove I'm working through a potted Primus family and also the Optimus flip-out/box-stove family but in no rush to complete them So, that's enough rambling from me, how about you? Alec.
I'm more of a gatherer, I don't shine them up much. Like Ben above, I get ones that interest me. Duane
Received an old Coleman 220 lantern and Prentiss & Waber No. 208 from my grandfather, next thing you know, I stumbled across this site and now I'm ruined. Seriously though my first backpacking stove was a Coleman 3025 Apex like propane stove, and I've been looking for the perfect stove cookware combo ever since. I started with gassies and now I've graduated to white gas.
I will claim the same route down towards the depth of deception of loved ones, hiding new purchases, and the continuous odor of fuel disguised with other fuel. I have just over 30 (no nearly 40) stoves unless there are some even i cant find Of those maybe 5 get regular use in the real world and another 8 or so have been used. Most go and I try and light at least one stove a month but last time I did this 6 got lit.
I've told my tale over the years, but as we get newer members it's probably worth another outing... I got an Optimus 45 (L, with tin) from my folks for Christmas 1961. It was a unique item hereabouts back then. I got many style points as a Scout for it-- this was the days of fires, not stoves. I carried it 50 miles on the Wonderland Trail in 1962 or '63. (So it's a hiking stove!) I used it Saturday mornings in the local gulches on the outings of the Royal Order of Mountain Beaver. I went away to college at 18 and never moved back home, having gotten married at 19. I have 4 younger brothers. Sometime over the years, the stove disappeared. Our dad died in February 2001. (Our mom had died a couple of years before.) My brothers and I were over at their place shooting the breeze in the aftermath, when the subject of the old Optimus 45 came up. An amiable discussion ensued, and the memories of the stove flowed. A few days later, I looked up Optimus and Primus stoves on the internet. I found CCS. I made my first post in April 2001. The rest became history; I stopped collecting at about 60 stoves, after I found my holy grail: an unfired Optimus 45 in pristine tin..... One thing I'll never forget. Shorty after finding CCS, I bought my first keroburner (in 40 years) on eBay. The whiff of kerosene vapor when I fueled and fired it up flooded my brain with memories of that old 45; it was amazing.
I got my first stove when in 1967, it was a GasPak and have been fascinated with portable stoves since. The first one i bought was an Optimus 8R, which was very popular with trampers in New Zealand in the 1960's and 1970's. The rest of the story, as they say, is history. I now have about 22, some are users, and some are unused, or kept in the box. My favourite is a 1939 Primus 71L, but then, they are all special. Cheers Simon Foxxx New Zealand
Oh, well, got my first Optmus brassey when I was very young from my grandfather, no one else in the family wanted a kero pressure stove. I was interested in it, used it for years, then he gave me his Siram kit , it was used by me a lot. Meanwhile I collected anything old that interested me. Anything antique, I beleave in the use but not abuse thing. Other stoves and lamps came along but have been collecting old things since I was 8 , so my collection has got a bit out of hand. When I was a teenager my Father said we will have to build you a shed of your own so we can get your stuff out of my shed, it's taking over.!! Then I found CCS some years ago and got a little more interested in stoves but really I was bitten by the bug a long time before, yes stoves are addictive!!! I try to use most things including stoves in rotation but as far as stoves go it's hard now owing to last count 30 or so. Restoring and conserving I get the most pleasure out of, especially if I am told " you will never get that thing going" HA HA Cheers Rob
I'm more a user than a collector too. Started with an Optimus 8, love this little stove, discovered this website, bought an early 111, and finally took a brand new Trangia 27 K. I use all three, depending of my mind, for camping or at home, for fun.
