Thanks a lot CDRIVE, I will build that one later, and see how well it works. I am convinced I am doing something obviously wrong, it can't be this hard to build an oscillator, can it? They are relatively simple circuits...
They may have few components but are quite complex. The crystal and choke do not have all their parameters given so it is difficult to simulate. The gain must be adequate to compensate for losses and the phase must be right. The fact that there is a plethora of designs indicates that some solutions work in some cases only.
Many years ago I made a 100kHz crystal oscillator using a pair of transistors (red spot?) with the crystal connected between the emitters. This worked well and was consistent with the Droitwich 200kHz transmitter, slipping one cycle every 10 minutes or so. This type of oscillator was necessary because of the high resistance of the large crystal bar.