I have a Primus 981 Lantern that has a stenciled crown on the bottom, just one crown, not 3. It suggests a military marking to me, possibly Sweden or Denmark. Does anyone know? Excuse my ignorance, I'm from the USA.
That looks like the type of crown they would use in Sweden. Not something I have seen before. Maybe one of our Swedish members knows.
Never seen it in Sweden as an official symbol either presented as only one crown of that type. But I recognize it from another topic in here, or possibly CCS, recently. Will try to find it later.
Ha! I found it. It was in the Coleman collectors forum in a thread about Primus 1060, and it was the underside of this 981 that was posted there. I asked about more information about the lantern there, but never got any response. Now I atleast know that it was from a 981... Or could it actually be a 991? Someone has also scribbled the sparepart number for a cleaning needle (#6347) at the bottom, and that one is used on e.g. the 991. The 981 should have #6422 The date stamp (AD) tell us it's from 1939. When it comes to the crudely made crown, it do absolutely look very much as one of the three crowns used on some material from the Swedish armed forces. Perhaps they used just one single crown sometimes, but you would normally expect the three together. That's the correct symbol. As seen on e.g. this military vehicle plate:
In Sweden the three crowns were introduced on military equipment from 1940/1941. Before that only one crown was used, much to the confusion of collectors.
Yes, that seems like a good explanation, even if the year of the change seems to differ slightly now when I look it up. Some say 1942/43. And to add to the confusion the helmet model 21 (from 1921) obviously used three crowns, just as the air force has been doing pretty much since the beginning. dmacp, could we please see the entire lantern now?
Thanks JBM, for tying this together for me. Here are a few snaps of the lantern. Don't know if you can see it but there is a tiny loop on the spirit cup, presumably for a wick? Thanks All, Dan
