Vintage Camping Gear - What Do You Use?

[4WD Swagman]

Inspired by the Coleman thread, welcome to the vintage camping gear thread.

The rules? There's just one rule - it has to be at least 30 years old, so manufactured on or before 25APR1987

Show us what you got.

 

[JohnVee]

@mel lowe has some cool stuff, but I'm not sure if it's his regular gear or just what he uses when he needs to get into character.

 

[JackA]

I use my Coleman 3 burner stove, the single burner and a variety of lanterns. Most of which are older than me.... born in 1973.

I will post some pix next week after this weekends road trip to southern Az

 

[4WD Swagman]

I'll kick it off with a few bits and pieces of mine.

Coleman 425E - made in Dec 1975. This is pre-resto-mod. Now it's olive drab and the interior and burner assemblies painted with gunmetal hi-temp BBQ paint

1970s Svea 123R gasoline stove, US Model of 1916 Bacon Can used on a recent outback trip.

Wenger Pattern 1908 Swiss Soldier's Knife made in 1940 - coolest EDC ever.

Primus 71 Stove all closed up in its tin/windshield/pot stand.

Priming the Primus 71. With these types of stoves I just use a squeeze tin of zippo lighter fluid. Which I refill with the same shellite fuel I use in my gasoline stoves.

Primus 71 Stove in its tin with pricker and key. Originally the inside of the tin was shiny tinplate, but by the time it came to me it was completely rusty so I removed the rust and hit it with hi-temp paint. It's a "user", not a collectable to me.

A Vintage flax water bag hanging from my tarp during a recent outback trip. This one is leather backed and designed to be strapped to a horse's breastplate.

I sometimes take the same waterbag on old-style foot-borne adventures. This pic was taken during a bushwalking (hiking) trip where I carried a swag "Waltzing Matilda" style.

A Stonebridge folding candle lantern I picked up off ebay a week or so ago dirt cheap out of the USA because it was listed as a "stoneridge lantern", thus foiling the collectors and their keyword alerts hahaha. This is one of the common galvanised sheetmetal ones which at some stage in its life was painted orange, probably for Halloween. I like the folding candle lanterns and have a bunch from the Garrett Wade brass repros of the Stonebridge lantern, to the modern UCO types and the Swiss Army Faltlanterne.

 

[4WD Swagman]

Mmm... Bacon... 1918-manufactured US Army Model of 1916 bacon can. I use it for bacon funnily enough, like the smoked and cured porkbelly seen here.

I have a bunch more which I will post including tents, hammocks, sleeping bags and other gear. I use it all since I don't see the point in just owning outdoors equipment simply to look at.

Show us your vintage gear.

 

[4WD Swagman]

My Borde "Bomb" gasoline stove.

Svea 123R gasoline stove used on a recent bushwalking trip

It's a bit hard to see in this pic, but there's a vintage feather and down US M1942 Arctic sleeping bag outer and a 1940-manufactured Australian army officer's canvas bedroll. Everything else in the pic is new manufactured. It was taken during a bushwalking trip done "Waltzing Matilda" style carrying the officer's bed roll as a swag.

One of my vintage tents. This one is a 4-man cotton japara tent manufactured by Thomas Evans Ltd in Melbourne Australia in the 1950s.

Another pic of my "Waltzing Matilda" swag set up for carry during a recent bushwalking adventure. The swag roll is a 1940 Australian army officer's bed roll secured with two vintage leather belts and a leather rifle sling used as a shoulder strap. You can see the two canteens carried here... the one on the left dates from around the 1930s, while the other is a WWII model dating from 1942. Everything else, from my bush hat to my hand-made bush knife are new-manufacture.

Not really relevant for posting here at ih8mud, but some canteens and water carriage options for "waltzing Matilda" style bushwalking with a swag. Everything you see here apart from the quartpot and pannikin dates from the 1910s to the 1940s, including the 25lb calico flour bag I fitted with a drawstring and the tin matchbox.

 

[DickM]

My Svea 123 purchased new in 1975 is the go to flame for the first pot of coffee on almost every trip.
Shown with it's faithful partner all these years, a Sigg aluminum fuel bottle with pour cap.
Also original cup/cap with handle and a slightly younger hand pressure pump.

 

[4WD Swagman]

Nice old stove set @DickM !

Duct tape on the rim of the cup too You can see it gets some use hahaha

I still have the original cup and handle somewhere here, but I use a modern GSI Glacier cup which slips right over the top of the stove like the original.

Is the pump attachment simply for cold climate use? I've never had a problem priming the stove in the conventional manner where it pressurises the tank via heat, but then again the coldest I've used this stove is -5 degrees C (23 deg F). We just don't get proper cold here.

That original Sigg bottle is awesome.

I think Svea and Sigg might have run some joint products back in the day. I have a Sigg Tourist cookset which is designed to use with a Svea 123 stove.

Some more Svea 123R love -

In use with my old 1945-vintage British Army Pattern 44 Canteen and cup set

Priming the Svea 123R by lighting fuel poured into the "dimple". This heats the generator and pressurises the fuel tank.

Heating water in the back of the Shorty Forty. I use a 20mm ammo can to carry tools and spares and the lid makes a stable base for 40 Series Camp Cookery... well, not really "cookery" in this case. More like "water-boilery"?

The Svea 123R with cup and handle. The thing next to the tank is an old Primus stove pricker. I had a bunch of problems with the built-in pricker in the Svea 123R stove and ended up chewing the gears on it. The "R" designation means that when you finish using the stove and turn it off, you keep turning it off and a set of gears inside the generator lift an internal pricker which cleans the jet. Sounds super simple and reliable, but not for me. After having problems with it all jamming, I simply removed the whole pricker mechanism and manually prick the jet after use, thus turning my "123R" into an old-school "123" instead.

 

[Bogo]

MSR gas stove from '76.
Coleman dual burner white gas stove from the late '60s.
Coleman oven for use on stove from the late '60s.
4 place camp cookware and tableware set from the late '60s.
Vikingware waffle iron from the late '60s.

I'm not sure I could let go of the MSR stove because it is so small and handy. To heat up the engine after a winter night I'll take it and fire it up and place it under the oil pan. I know I never could let go of the waffle iron. It makes way to good of waffles. It has temperature gauges that make it easy to turn out perfect waffles.

 

[LAMBCRUSHER]

I rock coleman gas stuff, and some svea as well. My newest coleman is a peak one from 1987 IIRC but everything else is older than that. total of 3 single burners counting the SVEAs, is it 4 or 5 2 burnere 413s and 425s, and a 426 who has been asking for a dancing partner. Have 2 220s and 2 228s and one 200a all older than 1978. even my cooler is a green steel belted from the very early 80s...the canvas is newer, but old canvas smells, so I'm ok with that. been eyein an older chuckbox local to me that comes outfitted with another 200a and another SVEA...man, I gotta get out to them woods!

 

[LAMBCRUSHER]

it just does not get simpler than a SVEA, tho...just pour gas on it and light it up...

 

[ducktapeguy]

Does a 1975 FJ40 count?

I love old (I mean vintage) camping gear. I still have all my old camping gear from when I was young plus a lot of stuff collected over the years. Backpacks, coleman lanterns, stoves, etc. But unfortunately most of it has been relegated to the garage storage shelf. About the only thing I've used in the last decade is my mid 70's Jansport D2 external frame, just because I've never bought a new backpack. And somewhere I used to have a wooden external frame canvas pack, just don't know what happened to it. I do take some of the lanterns out once in a while just to fire them up for fun.

 

[4WD Swagman]

An unusual piece of camp furniture...

This is a British X-Patent Company folding table circa 1940s I believe. Made of timber slats covered in canvas, it was designed to be collapsible and to roll up into a bundle so it can fit inside the pocket inside a British Empire forces officer's bedroll - so said officer's slave/batman could lug it around. The earliest I've seen these is in an Abercrombie & Fitch Outfitter's Catalogue from the 1890s. Great little bit of gear that I use all the time.

I often work while I'm on the road, so here's the old X-table in use as a rather picturesque office table on the banks of the Murrumbidgee River near the tiny settlement of Maude, NSW a couple of weeks back. This old table is getting a little fragile so the plan is to make a copy and retire the original.

 

[4WD Swagman]

A vintage... well... I don't know exactly what it is. I have a feeling it's a piece of mountaineering survival type equipment similar in function to a modern bothy shelter. I do know it dates from the 1920s and was patented in Norway. Take away the survival gear angle and it's a waterproof bedroll cover, or it can be staked out at the ends and the doorway tied open to a tree or tent pole to make a cozy and compact two-person tent. It's made from light canvas and is completely waterproof. I've used it a few times and it definitely has its place as a wet weather adjunct to the swag bed roll.

 

[4WD Swagman]

Any of you old boy scouts on the forums would have seen one of these before. WWII jungle hammock. This one is slightly modded and I have since sold it, but I have another which is unmodified that I use on vintage-gear only trips.

 

[rusty_tlc]

I don't have very much stuff that isn't vintage. Most of it is stuff I bought new. Fxxx I'm old.

 

[rusty_tlc]

There was a day on MUD when **** wouldn't have been starred out.

 

[surfpig]

I don't have very much stuff that isn't vintage. Most of it is stuff I bought new. **** I'm old.

True dat!

 

[Dharma Dude]

True dat!

Correction: #TrueDat

 

[JackA]

I used all this stuff over the weekend. Worked great. Lantern is dated 1954. Stove is a 426d circa 1965.