Why did the Høvik Verk in Norge produce Primus - side by side with Primus in Sweden? The Høvik Verk did also produce lamps fx. the Primus 982. Why didnt they just buy it from their neighbough-land Sweden? Is the lamps identical to the swedish lamps in parts and colours? It seems difficult for me to find any lamp-pictures under the Høvik-section, mostly stoves but they are nice too hehe.
Over the period 1953 to 1961, Primus sub-contracted some stove manufacture to Hovik Verk in Norway, due to production difficulties in their own Swedish factories: http://www.spiritburner.com/fusion/showtopic.php?tid/13006/post/new/#NEW Best Regards, George.
Thank you George for your fast answer. It pusseled me for a long time. I am a shamed I was only thinking in competition, when it was the precious deed of good neigbough-hood instead. My lamp is born in the year of AR, 1952, and made on licens in Norge, a 982 type, 200 cp. Would love to show you the pictures but im a hopeless attaching pictures. I realy like them Høvik-stoves you got there by the way. Nice. Merry christmas Claus C
I hope I didnt mess up the site. Got a little help from my son. In the kingdom of blind - the one-eyed is king.
I have also wondered why Høvik Verk made Primus stuff under licence. Not much of it is found outside Norway and I wouldn't have thought that the local market was big enough to warrant their own production. Høvik Verk also made their own pressure products from the 30's on. I'm not sure if they stopped this when they started making Primus branded stuff, but assume so.
Thank you for sharing my wonderment Nils. Based on Georges information and a little imagination there might be a red line between production-troubles in Sweden, a time with wide-spread electricity at domiciles and to why the 982 Primus is sligtly rare. I a bit more happy to hold my own little precious 982 now. It follow free 2 Optimus 930 i bought in 2009. I still need information about how the handle looked, shape and colour, but I cant find any brochure at my local grocery store hehe. So any information is welcome. Regards Claus C
I am still trying to find more information on Høvic Verk. We know the brand name they used was Standard for their own product and they made Primus product under license but that is all I know except of course they were in Norway. I want to know where were they based, what was the company address, who were the directors or owners of the company and over what time frame did they make lamps? ::Neil::
All I know is that Høvik Verk was situated in Bærum and was originally a glassworks started in 1855. At some point in the early 1900s they started a lamp and metal working plant making, among other things, the items we know about. I believe the glassworks side of things closed down in 1933. In 1972 they moved to Halden and were taken over in 1999 by a large Norwegian company called Glamox.
Interesting. I have had a look to see what Google can do here. Glamox state they acquired Høvik Lys in 1999. I assume that is the same company. It was also interesting to discover that there is a Høvik Verk School in Høvik which presumably has some former connection to the lamp works. I can't get any further because I don't do Norwegian. ::Neil::
When Nils gave the former adress to the plant I rushed in to GoogleEarth and wrote his information in the searchframe. Høvik Verk then appears and beside the name you can actually see the school, wich is called Glasverket Barnehage (Glasswork childrensgarden) and the school is called Høvik Verk-school. I could imagine its the same site and even the same buildings now transformed to a school. Its almost like being there - it made my day. ;O) Claus C
George: Being the lucky owner of a Primus 1082 CP300 Hovik Verk from 1952 (AR), I wonder about your statement above that Høvik made the Primus' from 1953 to 1961. Also I wonder - did Høvik craft this lamps&stoves, or did they merely asseble precut parts from Primus? I struggle to find detalied info about the actual process in Norway.
There seems to be a lack of paper about the licence produced Primus products from HV. I have only seen a copy of a few pages from a Norwegian Primus catalogue with the HV name at the bottom. It only lists models of the time (early to mid 50's) and doesn't say anything about which ones were made by HV.
Living in the Høvik- neighborhood, I`m having a hard time letting go of these unsolved puzzles. There are a few historical writings about the Høvik Verk, one by Jacob Jacobsen: Høvik Glassverk - Høvik Verk and one by Robert Ramsey & Kaare Tisthammer: Høvik Verk: Det gode sted å vokse opp. These books can be downloaded or read as e-books. An image from the first one here: This is the only note about the stove and pressure-lamp production that took place, and does merely state that theese high-quality stoves was used by Fridtjof Nansen and Roald Amundsen on their expeditions. Note the lamp which could be the Standard 102. The second book has even less notes about the production of stoves and p-lamps, but led me in contact with one of the authors - Mr. Jack Robert Ramsey (83). Mr. Ramsey grew up on Høvik Verk in the thirties. He has a clear memory of the community and most of what was taking place regarding manufacturing. When I ask him about the production of licence Primus-lamps however - he is puzzled. As I understand there was a gathering some (many) years back, involving previous workers and descenders to celebrate the history of the community. In a speech held, the phrase "manufacturing of primuses and lamps" was used. A worker stood up and proclaimed that they did certainly NOT make Primuses, only STANDARD stoves and lamps. Mr. Ramsey belives non of the actual workers still are among us to solve the puzzle. We agreed to keep in touch. Who knows what the future may reveal. Haavar
Haknuts I will go straight to the library to see if it is possible to get the books in Danmark. Claus C
I suspect these two books have everything I want to know about the company and the people who started and ran it but because I don't read Norwegian I don't know. Be nice to see them translated but I would settle for a short history giving who when and where this company started and operated. ::Neil::
Spending some hours relaxing/stranded at a Stockholm hotell today, browsing some of my posts, this one reappeared. The ebooks referred to above can be downloaded as PDF. Then I copied the txt, ran it through google translate - into Office Mobile and viola. Problem is, on my tab I can only copy one page at the time, and there is a lot of puzzle going on to get the txt somewhat alligned. So is there an interest in the community for me to complete a translation of these titles? If so, me not having the same addictive/immerse need to fettle any kerosene-stinking scrapmetal- bins that emerges before me (hehe), as YOU do (2xhehe), maybe I could contribute with such a word fettle? Goggle translate fails (as do I) in grammar, but over time that could be corrected. Here is a sample. What say thee? Of course I have to get permission from the copyright holders, but I take my chances with a teaser. Hovik Verk - the good place to grow up Foreword Over the years there have been released some written material about the community Hovik Verk. In many conversations with former and current residents, however, it stated that it is missing something more about what life was like for us who grew up there. A story from the inside, so to speak. Many people have contributed to this report and thus made it possible to get it realized. The contributions have been of a different character; photographs, stories, screenplays, contributions, facts and especially critical re circumvention of the final manuscript. Nobody wanted some compensation for the contribution given. Board costs by publishing the book consists therefore out closing of printing costs. Should the book provide income beyond printing costs will be earmarked to Hovik Sports Association Age Male League. A particular contribution we will mention and there are preparations of the basis for the printing of the book. This applies to everything from fair copy of the manuscript, editing, layout and especially image processing. Without Bjorn Tisthammers benevolent help "all hours" we hard that we had to book as it currently exists. Such a report must be to serve its purpose necessarily bear the stamp of many individuals subjective observations and pri oriteringer. We who edited the drug has tried to summarize these in a presentation that we hope will be adequate for most people's experiences. The story is primarily a reproduction of what was seen with the boy's eyes, not from the adult point of view. This has just been the point, how young experienced growth up undisturbed by parental problems that surely the time that today some were great, others less. It has not been to prevent the male part of the site's residents which most often has been contacted and who have given their contribution. This makes enough preparation a little one-sided, especially stories, but we hope that it is not so much that it harms the general impression. We want to stress that we also have incorporated many valuable contributions from women's side. We have focused on an extensive use of photographs as we think they give a nice contribution to the description of the local environment. We have tried, but not always clearly identify all present in person pictures, but has found it appropriate to have pictures with anyway. Almost innumerable are the stories of daily life in Høvik Verk. Where we think it fits the stories are taken as they were told to us. They shall not be granted full justice in print, the narrator empathy we can not get a courtesy. For the sake of the stories are written in italics. Also nicknames abounded. They were lush but not malicious. We have allowed ourselvest to bring some of these. Most of it set forth herein refers to the period from 1930 until 1972 when the factory was closed. This applies to both the facts and the experiences and impressions that underlie the picture here is attempted character. Some history it has been necessary to take, but it is naturally not aimed at making the portion exhaustive With its relatively small population of Hovik plants will naturally be limited interest in this report. It will probably be read with the greatest benefit of those unfamiliar environment through upbringing or other connection. But it might also be of some historical interest as a description of a small community in a suburb municipality, a community that got a lifetime of scarce 125 years. Bekkestua/Haslum, summer 2004. Kaare Tisthammer. Robert Ramsey Contents Introduction 9 Residences and those who lived there 23 Factory and daily life 69 Music scene 83 Sports Life 93 Boat Association 115 Years of war 121 Hovik mills - good place to grow up 127 Alphabetical list of residents 131
It would be great to see. Is there a link to the books please? We just have a short history on CCS: Høvik Verk was founded in 1856 in Norway. Their initial production consisted of glass products. By 1876 they had started production of paraffin wick lamps. By this time paraffin was a popular fuel in Europe & they faced intense competition from other manufacturers. In response to this they started to diversify their product range & moved from glass to metal products. Glass & crystal lamps remained in their range but they subcontracted all but the metalwork. In 1900 they added wick stoves, pressure stoves & lanterns to their list of products, although the production of wick stoves was stopped after only a short while due to the popularity of the superior pressure stove. The range of pressure stoves was sold under the brand "Standard" & were made only for the Norwegian market hence their rarity elsewhere. Between 1953 & 1961 they also made stoves for B.A. Hjorth of Sweden due to production difficulties at the Swedish factories - the "Primus" became Høvik Verks only export product.Høvik Verk no longer make stoves & the company has been taken over & split into Høvik Steel, manufacturers of steel storage cabinets & Høvik Lys, now a Finnish-owned company based in Halden, Norway. They make exclusive & expensive electric lighting for the commercial market. Thanks to Arne Aasgaard in Norway for his assistance with this page.
I have to admit this traslation is put to a hold - possible permanently. My take on this was to extract the text from the PDFs and then have google translate do the rough part. The output from GT however need some serious tweeking in order to be acceptable. Then there is the making and editing of a worddoc with the images and formatting issues. I simply can not find the hours to do this. Foe those abroad that cant access NB, I have stored the two books innmy dropbox for you to download in the next post
Høvik Glassverk https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=96451F47CAF6EE7E!1646&authkey=!AKOC46gflpDCU8s&ithint=file%2cpdf Høvik Verk - Det gode sted å vokse opp https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=96451F47CAF6EE7E!1646&authkey=!AKOC46gflpDCU8s&ithint=file%2cpdf
Nice job you did Haknut They were pretty socialminded for that time, building among other things, free homes for the workers at the plant. No Wonder they could drag people to the place. It very easy for me to read. I have more difficulties with Nynorsk. Og så udtaler I nordmænd altså også tal på en mærkelig måde Thanks for the upload. Claus C
There is info that there was a före at the Primus plant first years on 1950th, might this been the reason for this ?
