As I reflect on my own entrance into the vintage cigarette lighter hobby, at first as a repairman and seller of old flame producing mechanisms before settling in as a collector of them, I ponder the reasons I was drawn to begin accumulating some of these fabulous little devices. For sure, there are many good and valid reasons to start a vintage lighter collection and this article will endeavor to enumerate a handful of them.
You Are A Handy Individual
If you enjoy taking old mechanical devices apart just to reassemble them in proper working order then the vintage cigarette lighter hobby might be appealing to you. Of the piles of old lighters out there waiting to be snatched up, you won’t find many that only need fuel in order to work but the vast majority will require some maintenance or repair work to function properly.
Old flints degrade and obstruct tubes over time, especially if stored in moist conditions, just as wicks and wadding can disintegrate and become structurally unsound. Corrosion and mistreatment can also cause a lighter to malfunction and require attention of all sorts in order to get it working again.
These natural reactions that cause decay and deterioration can be seen as opportunities though by the collector who likes to fix things. This is the number one reason I got into the hobby and the source of most of the fun that keeps me around!
You Love Old Advertising
We all have nostalgic images that float around our heads, reminding us of days gone by. Maybe the first brand of automobile we ever drove or the box of cereal we recall eating at the kitchen table every morning when we were children.
Cigarette lighters have been used as promotional items or advertising for just about any and every industry that you could conjure up and while some may see plain, unadorned lighters as most desirable, a quick check of Ebay “sold” listings will prove otherwise as attractive advertising models always sell at a premium and continue to go up in value.
Zippo doesn’t hold a monopoly in this regard either because there have been countless other brands, including those made in Japan, to incorporate advertising graphics on their lighters. One of the favorite lighters I’ve ever owned was an Allen Lighter made in Japan for The Allen-Haddock Company that featured animalized mechanical advertising for Huffman-Wolfe Mechanical Contractors.
You’re A Fan Of Creative Artwork
From advertising graphics and Art Deco designs to the colorful States Series lighters and masterfully engraved examples, cigarette lighters have been adorned in an immense number of artistic stylings. Enamel and lacquered paint processes, scrollwork and other fancy engraving and anodizing of aluminum finishes just to name a few.
Zippo’s Town & Country airbrush paint process was used beginning in the late 1940s to embellish lighters with a variety of outdoors themes including geese flying in tandem, pheasant and a dragonfly over a lily pond. Thorens, Evans and Ronson were among the companies who adorned their lighters with intricately engraved and painted Art Deco patterns in the 1920s and ’30s.
In addition to the various painted and engraved designs, there are other artistic or craft embellishments that can be collected such as enameled emblems and the leather form of various animal skins. Today there are many other ways that artwork is applied to a lighter such as Zippo’s 540 Color and Fusion processes, just as in the past there were celluloid and sundry faux synthetic “leather” wraps.
The Camaraderie Of Fellow Enthusiasts
The vintage cigarette lighter hobby is an incredibly broad and welcoming place to be. There is no end to the shared interests that can be discovered and fostered simply by hanging out and participating in places like the Facebook Lighter Groups, YouTube live streams and other places that vintage lighter enthusiasts gather.
It seems all the new friends I make these days are from the cigarette lighter community. I have gained trade partners from around the world and had conversations with individuals who I would have never come in contact with were it not for these cool, little fire making machines that I work on, sell and collect.
It brings to mind something that my buddy The Proffessor’s Garage told me yesterday in quoting Zippo Fanatic 77 but I will paraphrase here: your wife, your friends, your family, your co-workers, all the people you interact with daily in your life, none of them want to hear you talk about your cigarette lighters. But there are a ton of folks in the vintage cigarette lighter hobby community that would love to not only listen to what you have to say but have an earful for you as well!
It’s Fun!
This sort of sums up the entire hobby for me as each of the previous sections of this article cover elements of the vintage lighter hobby that I genuinely view as fun. That’s not to say that there aren’t aspects of the hobby that frustrate me but they are far over-shadowed by the joy that’s experienced when I get a particularly stubborn flint drilled out of the tube it’s stuck in or make the winning bid on an uncommon lighter I’ve been after for yrs.
Vintage petrol lighter repair is where I find the greatest amount of satisfaction as it is very cool to me to take an old mechanism that is seized up and not working, that caused someone else to throw their hands in the air and give up and to diagnose its problem and get it working again.
I am a big fan of old advertising and find myself collecting things from time to time that I previously wouldn’t have given the time of day simply because some of those old ads and promotional campaigns have grown on me more than I would have previously imagined.
With some of the artwork present on a few of the lighters that I have owned, all I can do is admire and wonder what caused the designer to think to embellish a lighter like that in the first place?
I can’t even begin to express what the friendships I have made in the vintage lighter community with people all around the world mean to me. I am humbled every day that I am able to work in this space and communicate with all the people, many of whom really have become friends.
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Check out our YouTube channel where we regularly publish show & tell and vintage lighter instructional repair demonstration videos and conduct the live stream Vintage Coffee And Lighters Live! during the midday once a week.
Until next time…✌️
This post captures so beautifully the nostalgia, passion, and camaraderie that makes collecting vintage cigarette lighters such an alluring hobby. I found myself completely immersed in the detailed descriptions of the artistry that goes into these pieces – from the intricate engravings to the enamel and lacquer finishes. It’s a gentle reminder of the stories these objects carry within them, and how their preservation can create links across time.
Moreover, the element of restoration you’ve highlighted really resonates. Taking these seemingly discarded, malfunctioning objects and breathing life back into them is a testament to the joy of creating and restoring, and the satisfaction of witnessing something old become functional and appreciated again.
The community you’ve described around this hobby is incredibly inspiring. The shared enthusiasm, the exchange of knowledge, and the friendships that grow out of this common interest form a unique bond among enthusiasts worldwide. It’s a powerful reflection of how shared hobbies can connect individuals across borders and cultures.
Your post really underscores that this hobby isn’t just about collecting old lighters—it’s a journey of exploration, creativity, friendship, and a shared appreciation for the craftsmanship of a bygone era. A truly inspiring read!
Thank you John, I really appreciate you taking the time to check out the article and leave such a kind comment here. The element of restoring and putting these old fire making machines back into service is definitely what hooked me on the hobby to begin with. I mean, there are untold numbers of old petrol lighters just laying around out there waiting for people to pick them up and start using them again. That is my major motivation for this website.
Hello, Dependable Flame! I just finished reading your article Five Reasons To Start A Vintage Lighter Collection. And I thoroughly enjoyed reading this article! I was really intrigued by all the reasons why you decided to get into the petrol lighter collecting world.
The two that really struck me as some of the ones that I could relate to are the artwork on petrol lighters and the advertisements. I love all the old ads! And the artwork too! Even though I’m not a lighter collector.
I’ve always enjoyed ads from the ’80s (I was born in 97′ haha) but, I’ve always loved doing a Youtube search every so often to look at the advertisements from television from yesteryear. When I look at them, they seem really funny to me, considering what we know today about smoking. But, even other ads have similar funny characteristics.
My dad and I joke about that a lot actually. We were just talking about it the other day! A few of the things that I just can’t understand from back when my dad was growing up. For example, it was a whole “era” or “thing” or “fad” back then, that whenever you would attend a family event, usually every one of your female relatives had made and brought to the gathering – some sort of weird looking “jello.”
And I’m not talking about strawberry Jell-O from the box. No, not the yummy kind! haha. These were the kind of jello recipes that were made with clear gelatin that was mixed with ingredients like a can of tomato soup and canned vegetables. My dad says he and his cousin at the time as young boys had more fun putting this jello on their plates and throwing it at one another because truly, nobody was going to eat it.
Another example is things like I always wondered why my grandmother on my dad’s side of the family was such a phenomenal casserole maker. My dad has told me many a time that growing up this was another thing that was very common.
Women would read Family magazines and companies like Campbell’s Soup, Carnation Milk, etc would put their ads in these magazines, alongside a recipe you could use with their products. And back then, it was sort of advertised as “If you have a can of cream-of-something soup and a casserole dish, you can have a gourmet dinner on the table in 30 minutes!”
Naturally, mothers with busy lives, and schedules, lapped this up and began to enjoy the conveniences of making casseroles. To this day, everyone still raves about my grandmother’s casseroles! And she wouldn’t have become so skilled at making them had it not been for those family magazines and those soup ads in those magazines haha.
We sometimes don’t realize how effective advertisements are in our lives. Or how much of a role they often play in culture, and the things we buy and consume. Petrol lighters or any other collectible item, is no different in this respect either. When I used to be a smoker, I would definitely only buy a new lighter if I enjoyed the design, artwork, or logo that was on that particular lighter.
It sort of becomes an accessory that you use every day, it strikes up a conversation with someone you might share a smoke break with at work, etc. Like adding jewelry, a hairband, or a specific pair of glittered earrings to a fashionable outfit, the lighter in your pocket becomes a part of your personality and your specific style.
And there are so many different logos, artwork, designs, textures, etc to choose from when it comes to lighters too. No matter if you enjoy nature artwork like birds or dragonflies. Or if you’re personality is geared more towards car repairs, you can even get a lighter that has a specific car brand name or logo on it too.
There’s truly something for every type of petrol lighter collector when searching for the perfect lighter!
Side note: Thank-You for giving me a few moments today, while reading your article, where I was reminiscing on all of the good memories I had with my grandmother. That really made my day. 🙂
This was a fabulous article Dependable Flame! And I can’t wait to read what you write about next!
Thank you Cal, I really am glad that you enjoyed the article and that it gave you the opportunity to reminisce about your father and brought back so many good memories with your grandmother. I guess that’s just what old items like these cigarette lighters do is take us back in time and I hope that others have a similar experience when reading the article.
I agree with you that the advertisements and artwork are the biggest draw when it comes to the collecting concerns of many enthusiasts involved in the hobby. It’s always cool to take a look and revisit those old advertisements and embellishments.
Hey man awesome site, love that you share your knowledge about vintage lighters. I personally learned a to from what you presented forward. I think this is greater advice for someone who doesn’t know about this, but that you are here to provide us with this info. Thanks for your insight.
Thank you Mustafa, I am glad you found value in and learned something new from the article. There are plenty of folks out there who seem to be surprised when they learn that these old lighters are such a source of joy for most folks who collect them but it is such a multi-faceted hobby with a wide variety of themes, mechanisms and brands to be collected that it is literally mind-boggling to consider how many different paths a person could take when deciding exactly how to put together a collection of old lighters.
Thank you for sharing your insights on the reasons to start a vintage lighter collection. Your passion for this hobby shines through in your thoughtful and engaging article. I appreciate the way you highlight various aspects of collecting vintage lighters, making it clear why it can be such a rewarding pursuit.
Thank you Anoth, I really appreciate you sharing your insights my friend and you make some very good points. The vintage cigarette lighter hobby has such a wide appeal simply because there are many aspects of the hobby that can draw a person in such as I have outlined in the article. For me, it was definitely the repair aspect initially and that kind of allowed some of the other areas like artistic appeal and the old advertising that I began to appreciate as a collector. It is really a wonderful community to be a part of!