Radius 119 - Civil defence version About 1950 Radius no.119 with a cook top The version made for the late Swedish civil defence -We seen Radius 119 text on the tank. How do you think? Must be "Jealous" right !!
Hello Lei, No,not jealous. Years ago magnus sold these new old stcok lanterns. Two versions. Which do you have ? Alcohol or kerosene. But a very nice lantern.
Lei, do you also have the small spout that attach to the paraffin can? It's very handy, and makes filling of lanterns and stoves so much easier.
I got one of the 'new old stock' 119 lanterns from Magnus years ago, the paraffin version. I didn't know that there was an alcohol version. I have never lit the lantern from Magnus because I also have a 'user'. Both of mine have the reflector shown on the lantern above. One year at Newark I tried boiling a kettle of water on the cook-top. It was nothing scientific. The kettle was the type with a copper coil in the base and it held an unknown amount of water. It was 45 minutes before the water boiled. So I would hesitate to call it a 'cook-top', but more a plate to keep your enameled mug of tea or coffee hot. However, it is certainly my favourite looking lantern. The proportions make it very pleasing to the eye.
I think the top is more suitable to melt snow, which also very well could have been what it mainly was meant for.
The civil defence version of the Radius 119 that you have Lei is from 1954. All Radius 119 for the civil defence came with spirit adapter kits and kerosene jets and needles as far as I know. There are two later military Radius 119 cook top versions as well. They are slightly different. I would assume that the civil defence intended to use Radius 119 along with the Svea 158 stoves delivered the same year in air defence / bomb shelters mainly, since it was shortly after WWII. The early goal from the start was air defence. The civil defence Svea 158 from 1954 and 1955 all have both spirit adapters and kerosene jets and needles to allow for dual fuel use. Both items are branded in a similar way. The 5 L fuel can is military and was used mainly with the stove and cooking equipment sets. Also used in some military vehicles. The spout Christer describes that belongs with it, is excellent to have. Swedes are notorious coffee drinkers. Keeping the coffee warm in the shelters along with other hot drinks must have been the main intention for the 119 cook top. The military had special stove sets to keep food and coffee varm as well. Maybe someone has more information?
Sweden is the second largest coffee drinking country in the world and Finland is number one. I have six of these lanterns. I bought an used one with cracked collar and one unused with cracked collar before I was lucky to have the opportunity to look inside a storage to pick up three unused ones without cracked collars and with all the accessories like instructions, spirit cans, spirit nipples and needles, mantels and shades. Two of them has nickel plated hoods but one is with brass hood. I chosed that one over a third with nickel plated hood to have a more unusual one in the collection. All these lanterns was from the CFs stocks. Last year I bought on a market here in my city, from a person that had worked at the now defunct Air Force base F13, a box with a 119 from the Air Force. The large wooden box contained a slightly beaten up 119, some mantels and some larger cans for kerosene. It had been a leftover from an exercise in the 60s that the base storage did not want to have back so he took it home instead. Michael
