I like the Veritas as well, it's a well made lantern. I restored it back to life, withe the generous help of a few fellas from the group, a fella offered to send me part from England, in Australia fellas sent me parts and helpful hints, there was no pricker, a fella sent me links to eBay for similar needle, i had to file it down etc, Long peerless mantles to pre heat vaporisor, long pre pre heat, allow for full bowl, let it nearly burn up, pumpit open valve and away it . I now have 4 in my collection.
Your veritas is very smart looking, clean, i have one Dutch Army im going to fettle, ill use yours if you d ont mind as an example of what mine should look like, top class
Hi Darryl, thanks for your nice remarks ! Here some more pics from my favorite ‘ dutchie ‘ Well build lantern, you can even sit on it ! ( please do not when this girl is on fire.. ) Greetz to down under from a cold and windy Holland Tjerk Polée
Nice mistake the dutch army made back in the 50’s... ( see photo ) They painted the word ‘ kero ‘ on it BUT she’s running best at my place with coleman fuel ! ( notice also the coleman style pump ) The dutch army , the Koninklijke Landmacht , used both versions side by side. So wrong fuel in the wrong lamp was easy made. And THAT’s the reason why they got a bad reputation in our Army ! The poor lantern itself couldn’t help.. In the 1980’s the Veritas was replaced by the Hipolito H 502, special grey version, the same colour the Petromax lanterns from the german Bundeswehr from the 60’s do have. From the year 2000 and on the Hipolito’s in the dutch army were phased out and delivered to the surplus market in Holland. Many of them still new and unused, sitting in their containers together with manuals in dutch language and some spare parts. These Hipolito’s are very well made and the same quality as the old german made Petromaxes from Altena I own several of these portugese products, they all were new and unused in there NATO green boxes .. I’m very happy with them ! Tjerk
Here to be seen a row of Hipolito carrying containers for the dutch army H 502 lantern in NATO green.. Notice the difference with the german Bundeswehr version ! ( front cannot be pulled down ) Advantage here ( in my opinion ).. if the lid is not properly closed your lantern will not drop out while walking.. :-) Best regards from NL, Tjerk
Hi Darryl,great job. I am currently renovating a 1951 Veritas ‘found’ 22 years ago when we moved into a Dunedin house. This is my first ever lamp fettle. The pricker is still OK but a little bent and wobbly. Did you order the Petromax pricker to approximate the fit? I have some brass tubing and 150 um wire coming to as back up. Also the leather pump cup is disintegrated. Do you happen to know sizing (e.g. 14 mm) for this? Many thanks.
Like that, have a 'civilian' 350, and yes they do work well and sound good too. Interesting to know the Dutch put them in metal cases as well. Just curious but are the Veritas boxes the same size as they used to put the Hipolito's in, or are they different sizes? Here are pics of my Veritas 350:- Tim
