I posted these stove photos as a response to getting an e-mail message from a fellow who was doing research on Primus stoves. These photos show my two Optimus 80 camping stoves. The top stove was bought new in 1968, the bottom one bought used at a garage sale in 1979 for the ridiculous price of 75 cents.

The story behind the upper stove is interesting. I bought it at REI in Seattle on August 24, 1968, a few hours before boarding a Milwaukee Road freight train that took me from Seattle to Chicago. Its first use took place in western Montana, cooking freeze-dried beef hash in an empty Penn Central boxcar. A detailed description of that trip begins on this page. During my writing of that story I mistakenly called the stove a “Svea” rather than an “Optimus.”

In 1973, during a 17-day backpacking trip around Mont Blanc (the Tour du Mont Blanc) the lid label came off, a victim of stove heat. That stove is still being used in 2015, 47 years after I bought it. The stove has held up well, requiring little maintenance. In all that time I have replaced the gasket of the filler cap twice, cleaned the throat a few times with the included “needle tool,” and perhaps replaced the filler cap. The last photo clearly shows the engraved model name of “Optimus 80.”

The lower stove is one I bought in 1979 at a garage sale in Seattle. I have never used it. The label affixed to the tank prevents me from knowing whether any engraving exists on the surface of the tank. The model name is visible in good light on the sooty label. “Optimus” appears in the upper left part of the label and "80" (not visible in these photos) appears in the lower left part.