I picked up this Veritas 350 this morning from a Facebook Marketplace seller. It had been her father’s lantern and she had fond memories of family camping trips in their Morris Minor. Setting it down on the workbench I gave it a once over. The cleaning wire still functioned, the mantle was in tact and after a couple of pumps the nrv freed and away it went, burning the twenty year old paraffin that came with it. I sent the picture to the Facebook seller as a thank you, which with Father’s Day being tomorrow went down very well. This will get a clean up and the logo will stay original. Nice addition to the collection.
I like Veritas lanterns they are very cool, they sometimes have a bad reputation for not working properly issues but in one of my previous posts I think I put that to rest,. Great lanterns hours of fun
I’ve never had a problem with the Superb and given that this fired up after 20 years in storage, hopefully this one will be ok too. The hood is in very good condition, just a couple of chips. The globe is original too and has some really nice imperfections.
I think the myth of the poorly behaved, badly made Veritas has been well and truly laid to rest now. It is my belief that they were actually very good lanterns that got a lot of use and because of that, the ones that we find often suffer from all the problems associated with a heavily used lamp... worn jets, leaks and general wear and tear. And... the Coleman fuelled Dutch Army models didn't help matters with little to differentiate them unless you know what to look out for. The hood intrigues me as well so I had a look in the gallery and realized there are 2 distinctly different types of hood. One has a central nut similar to a Coleman and the other uses 2x 2BA dome headed machine screws. I can't see which came first or why there were 2 types. I've seen 9955's with both types and 350s as well so it doesn't seem age related. The Dutch Army 350s that ran on Coleman fuel sometimes had the single nut but also had the twin screw so I'm confused. Also, the single nut version looks like it was designed for a lamp with be a central post to attach it to which no Veritas has. I'm guessing they bought a bunch of hoods from a different manufacturer and used which ever they happened to have lying around. As discussed on another thread, other lantern manufacturers had a similar 'make do and mend' mentality such as Vapalux/Bialaddin so it appears to have been a relatively common practice. Interesting though.
