Searching for Coleman

Just when I thought that I would never see another vintage coleman lantern at a yard sale these two lamps showed up last weekend!

The green lantern is a 220F with a Sunrise stamp that reads 6  68

(produced in June of 1968)

And the red lantern is a 200A stamped 2   53

(produced in Feb of 1953)

This lanterns seems to have a bit of a posture problem. I guess it must have fallen at some point and is a bit bent out of shape.

Time to check with some other collectors for some hints on restoring it...

My new 200A is a diminutive lantern (only 12 inches tall) in almost perfect shape.

I think it is the most beautiful lantern I have collected to date...

-Martin

Time

Time 

Time has been passing by faster than I like it to. 

Since my last post I have been working more than I care to and hunting less than I normally do...

Tasks like fixing my wood furnace and making money to pay for dental bills and real things like taxes

have been pressing.....

But one can hunt for time too......

In and amongst a forest of distractions I managed this fall to make a two week trip up to Northern Quebec

with my bow and arrows

A goal of this trip was to travel some new ground and take my recently departed friends

Coleman Lantern

along to light in the quiet of an isolated lake...

Before my friend died suddenly this year, we had always planned to make a trip like this to Quebec.

Time though just got in the way of that ever happening......

Gerry....

You may be gone but you certainly are not forgotten...

-Martin

Recent Finds on the Coleman Trail

Its been a long summer. The chainsaw hasn't been getting much rest cleaning up from the last big storm and now the electric start on the ATV has given up the ghost. 

Taking some time off to recharge I hit the garage sale trail on the weekend in search of Coleman's.

Here are a couple of recent finds!

This 228e was sitting in a pile of things by the roadside with a "free" sign on it!

Here is a Coleman "G.I." Pocket Stove Model 530

It comes nestled in two cooking pots.

Six "Grate Bars" unfold to hold a cooking pot

This stove is missing a pot handle / wrench  and funnel that 

came with it originally but is in mint condition. It will burn either coleman fuel or gasoline.

The 530 is a civilian version of a military stove that Coleman designed for the U.S. forces in 

world war two.

It's my most amazing stove find ever!

-Martin

Searching for Coleman

So where was I on Flashlight Friday?

Out at yard sales while driving north on an errand.

The errand was the mission but the yard sales were an added bonus that I built into the the task.

The big score of the day were a few old Coleman lanterns that I found along the way.

This is one of the most beautiful lanterns I have ever seen!

I am teaching myself how to take them apart and restore them.

If you look close you will see that one of the burner tubes is broken off. 

I need to figure out how to replace it.

Here is whats called a "Sunrise Mark" on the lantern tank or "Fount"

See the stamping 27    6 

This means that this lantern was made in 1927 in June

Here is another lantern. 

I don't know if the red top or "Ventilator" is original.

I think this one was made in Feb. 1929?

Now that I know the dates that these lanterns were made I can find out what models they were and look for their schematics online.

"Hunt to live....Live to Hunt"

-Martin

Kindred Spirits

This past weekend was one of the biggest yard sale weekends of the season . 

There are literally hundreds of sales to go to in my area on this May 24th three day long weekend 

Thursday night, in preparation, I sat down with a map and a list of early listings from the paper, prioritizing the good from the bad, and then on friday morning I reckoned my first list with new listings in two different friday papers, planning out a weekend strategy. 

At 8:30 am friday morning I visited my first sale, a huge fundraiser sale for animal welfare....

There were thousands of items at this sale laid out on tables and in boxes on the ground in a huge parking lot. The air was almost electric with excitement as hundreds of rummager s  simultaneously searched frenetically for treasures. 

You have to be quick to get the deals because if you think about something for too long, someone else will often scoop your item for themselves.

A personal goal for the weekend was to find some more flashlights to talk about on 'flashlight friday's"

Well its true you never know what will happen when you are out visiting garage sales. Thats part of the appeal, the unpredictable aspect of this hunt.

Saturday morning, my second day searching, after visiting a number of less than inspiring sales in a tiny  uninspiring subdivision on one side of Peterborough Ontario, I happened upon a kindred spirit.

Cliff a fellow flashlight fanatic, and coleman lantern collector too was having a garage sale of his own.

This is the first time I have ever met him.  He is humble about his collection and dismisses it as "tinkering in the garage" I think its amazing!

The photos that follow are from the inside of his garage.

-Martin

Coleman Lights

It's been overcast and raining hard for a few days now. Last night the thunder and lightning put on quite a show. One of the dogs who is afraid of lightning slept at the side of my bed for comfort. 

This morning it's still overcast but at least the rain has eased up.

In an effort to eliminate some of the "gloom" the weather has been causing I thought I should bring out some of my Coleman Lamps.

W.C. Coleman was a typerwriter salesman with poor eyesight but business vision. In the early 1900's he started producing lamps which would develop into the type of "pressure lamp" 

that you see below in the 1930's. This type of lamp became the standard 

lamp outdoorsmen would 

use for decades and is 

still produced and popular today. They are bright, portable and dependable.

 Today clubs of collectors get together to light their lamps and share information on old lantern restoration.

Coleman Lantern collectors are a special breed .....

(this link is to a youtube video of an especially odd one)

-Martin