What model of cooker is correct for my application?
I realize that the above information has the potential to seriously "heat up the market" for Canadian Coleman Model 500 Speed Master Stoves.* I offer the following thoughts to guide your efforts at obtaining an example.
If you concur with my suggestion that the correct identification of a Canadian Cookers, Portable, No. 2 is in fact the Coleman Model 500 and you own a vehicle that carried one or are involved in living history displays then you might be interested in obtaining an example.* I have not been following the market for long and I have no idea how frequently they appear for sale.
Depending on the time frame you are interested in portraying, the Canadian model may not be correct.* Their use overseas would have been severely curtailed in April 1943 because the burner design was incompatible with the supplied leaded petrol.* There is pictorial evidence of their use during training in England but it appears that they were replaced by British stoves prior to most of the major operations involving Canadians (Dieppe excepted - although I suspect that there was limited opportunity that day to cook lunch).
All of the pictorial evidence that I have been able to find regarding Canadian use of Cookers, Portable, No. 2 in Italy or North West Europe shows either Mark 1 or 2 British stoves and this makes sense because the Mark 1 could be modified, and the Mark 2 was specifically designed, to burn leaded petrol.
http://collectionscanada.gc.ca/pam_a...opy=a132806-v6
http://collectionscanada.gc.ca/pam_a...opy=a162681-v6
http://collectionscanada.gc.ca/pam_a...opy=a133978-v6