Optimus 99 stove (70's)

The thing I miss about the "old school" gear is that you could drop it and it was actually still useable. We can say what we want about our new "high-tech" gear, but when you constantly shave material out of things to make them lighter and lighter, they lose some toughness.

Still, I'm glad we have options.

OH,
Haha, this was obviously way before my time. I wouldn't even know how to begin using this stove. I would love to have one of these just to figure out how to use it !

Kyle,

Well it worked a lot like the Wisperlites of today. The pump that is shown in the pictures was actually a option. I had one, all it did was to push the gas out into the priming pump to prime and pressureize the stove. After you had it going then the pump would help to keep the pressure up.

One nice thing about the stove was the sound of it fired up on a cold winter morning, it would ROAR! I know some folks like the sound or lack of sound from stove today but I always loved that roar!

By the way I still wish I had that stove, just like a lot of things that I have had in the past it was sold long ago. Sure wish I still had it! Notice that the price on Ebay is considerably more than I paid for it new back in the mid 70's.

OH

Wow, I was born in '79, and that is one neat stove. It had 11 bids when I looked at it, so there are still some who wants one. I liked how it all folded up nicely in one small package. I use to carry a big ol coleman single burner stove too, I am so glad that I found canister stoves

Dwight,

At the time most of my friends used the Svea 123, which I thought was heavier and bulkier. The Optimus 99
was lighter at the time. And by the way I to now use canister stoves.

OH

I found this old stove underneath my house when I first moved here. I had never seen one like it before until I was watching "Band of Brothers" on HBO. I need to see if I can buy a pump for it, and maybe ge it working again. I would never take it with me on a trip, just neat to have and to have working.

Dwight,

Nice stove! I found this link to a little history on your stove. stove history I am looking for a source of
stove parts at the moment but this looked intersting. I wonder if it ran on kerosene or gas? White gas
didn't exist during WWII.

Edit. Duh! it says gasoline in your picture!


OH

Dwight,

For what it is worth they were made by Coleman.

U.S. Army messgear


OH

Thanks for the link OH. I wish that I had the mess kit that came with it too. Maybe I can contact coleman in Wichita,KS and see about getting parts. Since it runs off of gasoline, it might pressurize itself. I might try it later.

Dwight,

One thing that all of those old stoves had in common was that hey have a priming cup. Look to see if your old stove has some kind of cup to hold fuel for priming. If it does you can use gas or alcohol to prime it with. You fill
the cup up and light it. Just before the fire goes out you open up the know and it should fire up if it is working right.

OH

Thanks, I might go dig it out from under the house and check it out. I always thought that it was neat, but have never done anything with it.

Dwight,

Here is a sight that might help you.

Classic Camp Stoves

OH

Thanks, I tried to prime it, but no sucess . It is not a '45 model but a 1942. The fuel cap has a hole in it and that is what is confusing me. It has a open/closed valve, and it has some kind of up/down regulator on the generator. Thanks for the link.

The hole is wherethe pump goes, you can see it kinda in the pic I posted. Now to see if I can find one to fix it.