Optimus 8R camp stove

[Junk Yard Dog]

I bought one of these in the late 70's and used the hell out of it camping and backpacking for years. It held up, is a bit beat up now, and still works perfectly. They have become highly collectable, and have a cult following today, the Soviets even stole the design and copied it. Made in Sweden from the 50's to the early 80's, lots of imitators, but only one Optimus. Today I was looking over a huge antique store when I spotted something I never expected to see tucked away in a room full of glassware, and other useless crap, an unused in the original box Optimus with instruction paper. The box looks like it has a 1971 date on it. I also found the other well known Swedish camp stove, the SVEA 123 at another sale for a quarter, yes, twenty five cents. Unused Optimus stoves do show up on eBay from time to time, usually around $200, rarely have I seen one of them that was as nice as this one. It's going into my own cabinet of curiosities, my original still works, and probably always will . The Optimus is the best camp stove I ever had, the rest of my gear from back then was crap compared to what's available today, but not that stove. Sometimes it pays to look in the rooms full of old lady crap.

[millman]

[WeldonHunter]

It's always nice to find little gems tucked away in the most unusual places. I used to help an old friend rebuilt industrial stapling machines up and down the west coast and we always stopped at thrift stores to look for cast iron cookware. He knew the difference between a nice old Lodge or Wagner pan and the newer Chinese made junk before even picking it up off the shelf. The stores still had a decent amount of this from, especially in the San Francisco Bay area. We'd build up a stash of them and then recondition them to sell to collectors. Now you're lucky if you see trash modern cookware in thrift stores.

[Junk Yard Dog]

It's always nice to find little gems tucked away in the most unusual places. I used to help an old friend rebuilt industrial stapling machines up and down the west coast and we always stopped at thrift stores to look for cast iron cookware. He knew the difference between a nice old Lodge or Wagner pan and the newer Chinese made junk before even picking it up off the shelf. The stores still had a decent amount of this from, especially in the San Francisco Bay area. We'd build up a stash of them and then recondition them to sell to collectors. Now you're lucky if you see trash modern cookware in thrift stores.

I saw a lot of Griswold, Lodge, and Wagner vintage USA cast iron yesterday, and will probably see more today, but all very expensive. Sometimes I get lucky at the flea markets and score USA made iron, but never in the shops. Dealers there know what they can get for it out of the NYC people who come up to leaf peep on the fall weekends. I will not by cheap crap cookware, Pyrex, Griswold, or other USA, yesterday I had a hell of a time finding a nice vintage 60's heavy aluminum tea pot. Lots of cast ones that were too expensive, and way big for my needs, most very crusty inside, probably used as planters. Hit an estate sale yesterday were I got that little stove for a quarter, nobody had showed up, and the lady was highly motivated to get the house cleaned out as it was sold. She was giving me stuff at the end just to move it out. I have a big West German made pendulum wall clock that may, or may not work for very little, all kinds of car chemicals, tools, books, no iron cookware. That Optimus was the thing to have in the 60's and 70's for deep woods camping, backpacking, I was amazed someone would have bought one and never used it. They were expensive back then also, something around a hundred bucks in todays money.

[steelbuttplate]

Do those burn kerosene ?

[Junk Yard Dog]

Do those burn kerosene ?

Alcohol or white gas

[Longcolt44]

White gas, do they still make that?

[Junk Yard Dog]

White gas, do they still make that?

Yea, Coleman still makes stoves and lanterns that use it, home crapo , Walmrt, and so on carry it, I just bought a gallon at the hardware store.