Hi all, after fettling and operating three old petromax lanterns (two "829B"s and a "523"), I wanted to buy a nice small lantern to light up the terrace. The 500hk behemoths seemed like overkill for this purpose. After a few weeks of researching I found an old Optimus 200P online. When I opened the package: shock. It wasn't a genuine Optimus but a build "License by Optimus", I believe those were build by Optico Ltd. in the 70s. Apparently the quality control at Optico was non existent: Vaporizer bent to fit, flaking of nickel plating, poorly cut threads the list goes on forever... Then it dawned on me: this may not be the highest quality lantern, but surely a good test subject to try a few modifications. (I wanted to keep the Petromaxes as original as possible, so I never got to test some ideas I had for quite a while.) 1.) the vaporizer: I replaced the upper vaporizer with a Swiss 250cp gasoline vaporizer (no Preston loop to clean). To accommodate for the loss of heat transfer I removed the control rod and stuffed the vaporizer with brass gauze. 2.) the jet: Just by the look of it I could recognize that the old 200cp jet was badly worn. So I swapped it for a new 150cp Petromax jet. 3.) the mantle: I choose a 200cp luxor mantle, as these tend to shrink. So a 200cp rated mantle is a perfect fit for the aforementioned 150cp jet. 4.) heat deflector: A small german shop sells a heat deflector "Prallteller", like the one used on the bundeswehr petromax, for all possible lantern sizes. I bought one and removed all material which would block the spirit cup. 5.) heat shield: I got an old butterfly brand heat shield in my fettle box. Was suprised how well it fitted the mixing chamber of the Optimus. The threads between J-tube and mixing chamber were treated with a paste of soap as thread lock. 6.) pump / nrv: The leather was soaked in mineral oil an I placed a small plastic washer on the inside of the leather. The plastic washer acts like a kind of spring to press the old (and too soft/thin) leather against the pump tube. The old Optimus nrv was salvageable, I just replaced the old pip with a new one made of fkm/viton. Results: - pros: burns clean with either kerosene, white gas or gasoline (disclaimer: don't use white gas or gasoline in petromax type lanterns!) easy to light with one spirit cup filling easy to pressurize because the Optimus style of pump is superior to the petromax style very fuel efficient very quiet (compared to a 500cp petromax) salvaged most of the old parts - cons: no pricker needle, as I needed to stuff the vaporizer with gauze no shut off valve, the Optimus has the old style of center feed vaporizer the poor build quality still shows, maybe I strip the nickle plating in the future and polish the lamp to shiny brass. Pictures: So, I guess I haven't bought what I wanted: A shiny and high quality swedish lantern, but I gained a nice working horse of a lantern. (And had a lot of fun fettling this old lantern) regards from germany, kk1992
A specific range of Optimus and Primus product was made under a license agreement dated 7th May 1963 between Irano-Scandinav Co., S/A. and Aktiebolaget Optimus. The 1963 agreement does not list a 200/250cp lantern so I assume Optimus 200P was added later. Because the License restricted sales to Iran only all of the lamps and stoves will be very rare outside Iran. It would be interesting to see an image of the label or tank stamps please on this lantern as it is a model I don't yet have listed in the PLC and the detail will be useful. ::Neil::
You can read more about the agreement in the post by Staffan Rönn from the sister site here: https://classiccampstoves.com/threads/1963-optimus-iran-license-agreement-including-primus.41917/ Regards Matti
There aren't any labels on the lantern and the stamps are pretty shallow. Nonetheless I disassembled the lantern once again to take a few snapshots of the innards. Notice the crude nature of the lower vaporizer, you can barely read the "Optimus" stamp on the vaporizer stem. I read on a german forum that it was possibly build in turkey, but the author didn't post any sources for this claim Hope this help with identification? regards from germany, kk1992
