Shoutout to my old Coleman stove that just keeps going

I finally broke down and bought one of those fancy portable butane stoves last month for a trip up near Flagstaff. Compared it side by side with my dad's old Coleman white gas stove from the 80s. The butane one was dead in 20 minutes on a cold morning, the Coleman never skipped a beat. Has anyone else tried going back to an older setup and found it just works better?

3 comments

3 Comments

martin.paige29d ago

Wait, hold on. You're telling me that old 70s Coleman sounds like a lawnmower? (I've honestly never heard that comparison before, but now I can't unsee it) That's wild. I mean, I knew those old white gas stoves had a certain... presence, but a lawnmower at 6am is a whole new level of chaos. Still, if it's boiling water in 3 minutes flat, I'd probably be willing to deal with the noise. My last trip I had to wait like 10 minutes for water to even get warm on my new stove, and it was freezing out. Makes you wonder if we've traded good performance for quiet convenience.

murphy.barbara24d ago

Yeah I had a buddy who dug out his dad's old Coleman last fall and showed up to the campground with it. @davis.noah you nailed it, he fired that thing up and I swear every tent within a hundred feet popped open thinking someone was revving a chainsaw. But man, the water was boiling before I even got my sleeping bag unrolled. Meanwhile I'm over here with my little canister stove that barely put out a flame in the wind. I mean, sure it's quieter but that old beast just works no matter what the weather throws at it. Makes me wonder if we're all just paying more for a stove that's basically just polite.

davis.noah29d ago

Cracked open my dad's old 70s Coleman stove last weekend for a camping trip and forgot how loud those things are. I felt like I was starting a lawnmower at 6am. But it boiled water in like 3 minutes flat. My fancy new MSR stove took twice as long and I smelled like propane the whole time. Guess old tech just knows how to get the job done.