Original German Esbit Style Alcohol Pocket Stove w/ 12 Tablets of Fuel Surplus

I bought this solid fuel stove on eBay in February of 2012 for $3.35, including shipping. The item was described like this:

This Auction is for Original German Military Issued Pocket Stove with 12 tabs of fuel
These are unissued and never used but in surplus condition
size is 4"x3"x1/2"

I think it is a heck of a bargain compared to a new Esbit type stove that typically goes for around $10-15. I tried to see if I could snag a couple more at similar prices, but no such luck.

I see the stove as mostly a pot stand. I might make myself a pop can alcohol stove and see how this works as a pot stand. Many of the home brew pot stands I have seen are pretty unstable.

I only recently got around to trying it out. The fuel tablets are thin and circular and only burned about 5 minutes each. The stove came with twelve of the fuel tablets. I was unable to light them except by breaking them in half and lighting them with a butane lighter. I might try the ferro rod approach again, but it just did not work this time. I even tried scraping the broken fuel tablets and trying to ignite the dust with the ferro rod - no luck.

A little lint or cotton might do it though. I was unable to light the fuel tablets even with a lighter until I broke them in half. The lighting issue may have something to do with the age of the tablets. Or maybe they are deliberately made that way.

It was kind of breezy and that probably did not help any, plus I did not have a lid on the enamaled steel cup I was using. Even so, it seemed to work OK. I used two tablets to heat the water up to something just under the temperature of a hot cup of coffee, but tolerable.