And we upgraded to a 2 burner camp chef propane stove for the Mrs. to have room for her cast iron and more fancy cooking, runs off a 20lbs propane tank, tank is still half full after the season and no shit I don’t even want to go back to white gas for anything.[/QUOTE] I don't want to go back to white gas either, It smells and leaks. I use propane most of the time but the higher the altitude the longer it takes to boil water etc.
The nostalgia though! I would say the beauty of white gas is its efficiency and the benefit of being a secondary heat source in tents and the like. I can put a lantern in my tent (tarp/no floor style or else you may get carbon monoxide poisoning!) in the winter and it keeps the frost burned off throughout the night. Can get around 7-8 hours of burn time easy in the lanterns
I can see the advantages for the specific application you mentioned, but that ain’t anything I’m doing lol. Personally I prefer the heat and the light separate. Little buddy heater runs on the same propane tank as the stove!
I do have several LED lanterns for power outage and car camping use (not much of a car camper though. I prefer backpacking). They DO put out a lot of light, and are definitely safer. No flames, no glass (heck, the Streamlight Siege and UST lanterns even float, if dropped in water). I also have the flat Energizer 8xAA lantern (great for directional flood illumination, vs being blinded if you accidentally look at a lantern). They all have their advantages and disadvantages, but none of the LED lanterns holds a candle to a Coleman lantern for color rendering (eg. blood trails). I do recall, back in the dark(er) ages, having to be careful with power outage illumination. The Coleman lantern was generally either placed in the middle of the dinner table, or hung from the ceiling to avoid the chance of being knocked over (yes, I recall at least one, being broken from getting knocked over). My parents also showed me the neat trick of using candles safely. They'd put a sealed can of tuna in one of those big old white enamel bowls, partially filled with water, and put the candle on the can. The white bowl and water reflected more light up towards the ceiling which made the meager light a little brighter, and if the candle fell over for any reason, it doused in the water in the bowl. These days, the LED options make life a lot easier. Both the UST and Siege lanterns can be left ON constantly for weeks on their lowest settings. Handy night lights for power outages.
They pop up for sale on the secondary market fairly regularly. Not all the time but not impossible to find.
