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| | The Zippo lighter (or simply Zippo) is a metallic wind-proof gas lighter, which is manufactured by the “Zippo Manufacturing Company” in Bradford, in the State of Pennsylvania, USA. The “Zippo Manufacturing Company”, in short-form, is also called “Zippo” under the trade mark, and history of the company and main product history the gas refillable lighter Zippo and are inseparably connected.
Zippo lighters are often items of collection and their lineup has thousands of different models and varieties manufactured by the company since 1933 and the models differ by metal, processing method, design, and drawings inscribed on the lighters. Regular Zippo lighters are made from brass, copper or chromium-nickel alloys and some models are made from pure copper, titanium, silver and gold. Some famous Zippo models have external wood, leather or rubber frame finishing. For more than the 70 years of its existence, the Zippo lighter has acquired a cult status and now for many, it is a symbol of American quality and durability. In 2007, the Zippo Company celebrated its 75th year since formation and to date; the company has probably manufactured about 450 million Zippo lighters.
History:
The Zippo lighter was invented by an American businessman George Grant Blaisdell in 1932 and Austrian made wind-proof lighter served as a prototype, which he noticed in the hands of his partner during a party.
After the Second World War, manufacture and sale of Zippo lighters sharply increased in connection with the release of a great number of new models and a very active advertising campaign in the press. Many lighters toward the end of the 1940's and the beginning of the 1950s were masterpieces with hand-made inscriptions on them and in these years, a boom began for having logos of various companies on lighters and using them as souvenirs and image products. But since the inception of the Zippo Company, the design and pattern of the lighters remained unchanged.
A souvenir cent Zippo in a frame has the inscription “Not a cent is spent on repair of Zippo a lighter”
From the first day of manufacture, George insisted on a “Lifelong Guarantee” as one of the main mottos of the advertising campaign.
Today, the Zippo Manufacturing Company makes about 45 000 lighters daily. For comparison: 82 lighters were manufactured and sold in the very first month of the formation of company in January, 1933.
A regular Zippo model consists of 22 parts and 108 subsequent operations are to be carried out to assemble them.
All Zippo lighters are manufactured only at the manufacturing unit in Bradford and nowhere else.
Since the very first day of manufacture, all Zippo lighters have a distinctive seal on the bottom part with the logo Zippo and early models have a patent number on the seal.
The seal on the bottom portion of the Zippo lighter is the most important sign of its authenticity for collectors, and the authenticity of the lighter and year of manufacture can be identified by the seal.
After 75years of trustworthy classical technology, the company decided to release a new refillable gas lighter, Zippo Blu. Butane is used as gas in the lighter and when ignited, butane has a blue color and hence the name.
Since 2002, the Zippo Company is sponsoring the world’s largest club of Zippo collectors under the name “Zippo Click” in the USA and the club has more than 15,000 members worldwide. The club regularly holds meetings of collectors, thematic activities and auctions, releases collection series of lighters especially for the club members and publishes the Zippo Collectors guides and till 2006, it has published its own magazine “Click magazine” for the collectors.
Facts:
The most expensive Zippo lighter, which is manufactured on a large-scale, is the model made from 750 carat gold and its retail price ranges between 4000 - 8000$.
Zippo in movies and mass culture:
* Characters of many popular films, protagonists of which personify courage and fearlessness use Zippo lighters: “Die Hard”, “Pulp Fiction”, “Dogma”, “Reservoir Dogs”, “The Grudge”, “Constantine” and others. In some genres of cinema such as biker film, the Zippo lighter is used as an indispensable attribute of the hero. According to the statistics of the company, the Zippo lighter appears or is mentioned in more than one thousand films and especially underlines that the product placement methods were never used;
* The Zippo lighter is a compulsory accessory of people leading a cowboy or biker style of life;
* Eric Clapton used rhythmical clicking of Zippo lighters in the song “It's Probably Me”, written by him for the film “Lethal Weapon 2”;
* One of founders of the Pink Floyd group, Mr. Syd Barrett used the Zippo lighter for playing on a slide guitar (a special metallic tube, which is worn on finger and which gives a characteristic “Floating” sound is generally used for pressing the strings on a slide guitar);
* Asuma Shikamaru, character from the anime “Naruto” used a Zippo lighter. |
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