We have a couple of other Optimus stoves in the collection but this one is a bit special as it was in a very bad state of repair and destined for the skip but we decided to restore it and here it is, albeit in not quite the original colour; a blue hammerite – all original otherwise.

It seems there are several variations of the Optimus 111 with a 111B, 111C, 111T and a couple more, the main difference seeming to be the type of fuel they run on and the burner head. We’ve been told by our pal Johan over in Sweden that the ‘B’ stands for Bensin which is Swedish for petrol, other versions run on paraffin or naptha, which is a refined fuel – commonly known as Coleman fuel in the USA & UK.

Svea were one of several Swedish companies that followed, hot on the heels of, Primus, who invented the first pressurised paraffin stove in 1892. Founded by Carl Nyberg, the company was later taken over by Max Sievert, though the brand name Svea remained. Yet another takeover in 1969 saw the brand acquired by Optimus and no doubt the saga will continue. Unlike Primus, Svea don’t have a date code stamped on them and the various takeovers have resulted in some stoves having a mixture of Svea, Sievert and Optimus, sometimes Primus, parts. An excellent website called Classic Camp Stoves and another called base-camp will help if you need more info. We reckon the Svea 121, King of Stoves, we have here in the collection is a fairly late version from around the 1960’s. We rescued it from our paraffin stove graveyard, cleaned it, put a Primus burner on top, found a few accessories and put them all in an old Primus/ Optimus tin to make a nice, hybrid addition to our collection.

Fab-u-lous, is the only way we can describe this 1970’s ‘timepiece’ which has been donated by our old friend,Alfie Ingram. Camper, climber, mountain rescuer, mountain festival organiser; the ubiquitous Alfie has pottered around his native Angus glens for many a decade with his wife, Joy, no mean exponent of the outdoor art herself. Alfie was also an engineer, to which this wonderful tin box of surprises adequately testifies. Slotting together amost like a jigsaw puzzle, the whole thing has been lovingly ‘engineered’ into a slick, easy to carry, easy to use set up, which Alfie called his ‘camping set’ and we can’t help wonder if there was a similar set of pots and pans, dishes, mugs, forks and spoons. We have other Optimus IIIB & 8R stoves in the collection, so check them out if you want more specific info. There’s also a wonderful ‘Ingram’ stove; another Alfie creation- check it out.

We’ve had a Radius tin for a while and were waiting for a nice stove to come along to fit it. As it happened, Mick Tighe, managed to get a Radius No.20 for a few pounds on e-Bay in 2015 giving us the set. Primus has become the generic name for just about all pressurized paraffin stoves even though they are not actually made by Primus. It’s the same as calling a vacuum cleaner a hoover. In this case our Radius was made in Sweden, probably in the 1950’s. Radius were not as prolific as it’s Primus neighbour – also made in Sweden- and have consequently become rather more of a collector’s item which makes us doubly pleased that we’ve got one !

Birmingham based, Townson & Coxson, were one of the many UK companies producing paraffin stoves before, during and after World War II. Just about all of them were copies of the Swedish Primus which was the first of its type back in the 1890’s. Quite how the international patent laws work, we are not sure, but this Burmos Touring Stove 21 seems to be very similar to a Primus 210, though the manufacturers, Townson & Coxson did have a few ‘tweaks’. They patented the screw system on the burner head in 1943, allowing easy access to the jet for cleaning and removal; the little clip on pilot light was another extra. Paraffin stoves needed to be pre-heated in order to get high enough temperatures to vapourise the liquid. Methylated spirit was used in the ring cup below the burner head for this purpose. Having also been soaked in methylated spirit the pilot light, clipped to the burner, provided a form of permanent match during the lighting process. The lovely little example that we have here in the collection is post 1943 as it has the patented screw on the burner head and it also has the Burmos logo stuck onto the tank rather than stamped into it, which indicates a slightly later version – circa 1955/60.

The first commercially produced paraffin appeared in the UK in 1848 though at that time it seems to have been ‘paraffin fuel for oil lamps.’ It was not until 1892 that the world saw the first paraffin, pressure stove when a Swede, Frans Wilhelm Lindqvist, registered the ‘sootless kerosene stove’ and formed a company called Primus to manufacture them. Since then the basic Lindqvist design has been copied the world over and the word ‘Primus’ has become the generic term for stoves of this type even when not made by the original company. Monitor, Burmos, Parasene, Thermidor, Valor, Bufflam,Optimus, Hipolito are but a few and you will find many of them in our collection in the camping section. At some point the Koreans decided to get in on the act, (we suspect 1950/60’s) and the result was the ‘Shinabro’ range, a nice example of which we have here in the collection. We think that the pot rests might not be original – maybe borrowed from a primus – otherwise the stove looks pretty much like its progenitor – if a little more rounded. This particular stove came from Mick Tighe’s Mountain Guiding Company, Nevis Guides.