The things you stumble across at the flea-market, hey?

Today, one of…many…things…which I stumbled across at my local market, on a cold, windy, drizzling Sunday morning, was A cute little piece of antique brassware…

I’ve always had a thing for oldschool, lift-arm cigarette lighters. And today, I finally found one – in brass (which I love) – from one of the most prolific makers of flashy, stylish lighters in the world: A. Dunhill. I was able to haggle the price down and toddled off into the cold and blustery morning air with a really cute piece of antique smoking paraphernalia (not that I smoke or anything, I just think lighters are cool…).

Lift-arm cigarette-lighters (so-called because of the spring-loaded arm with the snuffer-cap on the end of it), were among the world’s first truly successful cigarette lighters. With the invention of standard-sized lighter-flints in the early 1900s, mankind realised that portable firelighting was now possible, and on a scale much larger than just a box of matches. Lighters could be any size, any shape, and any style, so long as they all had the major components of a striker-wheel, wick, fuel-reservoir, flint-tube, flint and snuffer-cap or lid.

Early lighters were fiddly things. They resembled lipstick-tubes. You removed the cap, spun the wheel, and once you were done with the flame, you blew it out, or snuffed it by putting the cap back onto the lighter.

This might be alright, if you didn’t need a hand free to light the candle…or a cigar, or cigarette…or lamp…or incriminating business-documents…clearly, something better needed to be devised.

Enter: The lift-arm lighter.

Lift-arms started being made roughly around the time of the First World War. Two-part lighters with a separate body and cap were still around, but obviously in combat, it’s kind of tricky to be fiddling around with stuff like that when you need to light a fuse or a lamp or a candle in a hurry.

By the 1920s, lift-arms (and variations on that theme) became the go-to lighters for the discerning smoker. The design was simple:

A spring next to the snuffer-arm held it under tension. It either kept the arm closed, or open. The spring forced the arm to assume one of two positions, with the pressure of the spring holding it in that position until it was changed.

With this design, the size of lighters could be made more compact. There was no need for removable caps anymore, and as such, the whole top half of a lighter (which would usually cover the flint-wheel and wick etc) could be made much smaller. On top of that, a cigarette lighter could now be operated easily in one hand, rather than two.

In fact, a lighter could easily be operated by one FINGER, on one hand. When holding the lighter in one’s hand, ready for use, the only digit that moves, to open the snuffer-cap and strike the wheel, is the thumb. All other fingers remain stationary.

Companies like K.W. Weiden, Dunhill, and many others besides, all made variations on lift-arm lighters, which were most popular between about 1920-1939. This particular model dates to 1930. For reasons I’ve never understood, the design died out after World War Two, with very few, if any, of this particular type of lighter being made in the postwar era. Some companies (Dunhill among them) did make some right up through the 1950s, but by the 60s, they appear to have dropped off the map completely.

After that, most companies (Dunhill included) switched over to spring-loaded snuffer-cap lighters, which could be opened, and lit, all in one movement, instead of the two-movement lift-arm-and-strike-wheel motion of the older lighters (the ZIPPO, based on a pre-war, 1930s design, is about the only lighter made today which still does that).

I think it’s because this style of lighter was around for such a short period of time (probably not more than two decades between the wars), that I find it so interesting. It dominated the world for a few brief years, and then was seen no more.

Are Lighters like this Collectible?

Yes they are. Well, all lighters are collectible, but I think people like these above some other designs just because they represent a particular era in lighter manufacturing.

Are they Rare?

Not especially. The nicer ones, which were made in sterling silver, or even solid gold, are rare, sure. But a standard brass or nickel-plated one, similar to what’s shown here, is not especially rare. That said, they do cost a bit more than your average, vintage, liquid-fuel lighter just because of their age.

I notice the cap on the flint-tube doesn’t screw in all the way. Is it broken?

Nope! It’s designed that way. As the flint wears down, you tighten the cap, which increases pressure on the spring inside the tube, which causes it to press the remaining flint harder against the striker-wheel.

So What did you Have to Do to Get it Working?

Well, a fair bit, actually. Remember, this lighter is about ninety years old!

To get it working, I removed the wick, I removed the cotton wadding inside the lighter, and using a needle, I poked at, and broke up, the old chunk of flint still left inside the lighter.

The flint-spring was long gone. I got another one of the right size from another, broken lighter, and trimmed it to the right length using a pair of pliers. Then I simply slipped it into the tube, after a fresh flint. When buying a vintage lighter, keep in mind that there’s usually a piece of old flint stuck in the tube, from when the lighter was last operational. After decades, this flint hardens up, crumbles and clogs the tube. You can’t put another one in before you remove the blockage, and this can easily be achieved by poking the old flint with a needle or pin until it crumbles to dust. Then just tap it out of the tube. The tube is clear when you can see  the corrugated striker-wheel at the other end.

The next step was to replace the wick. I’m not going to lie – replacing a wick is a real lesson in patience. First, you need to remove all the cotton wadding inside the lighter…Yes, through that tiny hole in the bottom. The wick comes out after it.

After that, you need to insert a new wick. I recommend using Zippo wicks because they come with copper wire woven into the length of wick. This is useful because you can bend, shape and twist the wire to stop the wick from bunching up and kinking. Once you’ve twisted the wick and the wire into a thin enough point, you can simply poke it through the hole in the TOP of the lighter.

You may need some tweezers to help you with this. Ideally, the wick will snake through the body of the lighter, and come out the fuel-hole in the bottom. If it doesn’t, just catch it with some tweezers and yank it through, leaving maybe a quarter-inch of wick at the top (fold the wick over using the copper wire, to stop it from being accidentally yanked through the lighter).

The next step is to re-stuff all the wadding back into the lighter. If you want, you can change this for fresh wadding (use cotton-balls), but this isn’t strictly necessary. Cram the wadding into the body of the lighter any which-way, using tweezers or something similar to stuff it in. Fold and coil the wick back into the lighter as you go along, first one way, then the other, holding it in place using the chunks of wadding as you stuff them back in.

The final task is to juice up your lighter. Fill the wadding-packed compartment with as much lighter-fuel as you can squeeze into it. Be prepared for a bit of runoff.

Finally, screw in the filler-cap.

Last but not least, take a closer look at that filler-cap. You may notice that the inside of the cap has a little ‘nipple’ on it. Twist that thing and see what happens. In most cases, the nipple will gradually unscrew. This little compartment inside the filler-cap is meant to store spare flint-stones. Depending on the size of your lighter and the cap, you can easily store one or two extra flints in here. Don’t worry, the lighter-fuel all around them won’t damage them, and at any rate, the cap will keep them dry.

My Lighter Won’t Light!

Yeah that’s a bitch, huh?

A vintage lighter not lighting can be due to a number of factors.

1). The striker-wheel is worn out.

This rarely happens, but it can happen. Basically, the corrugations on the striker-wheel are worn so smoothly that they no longer catch the flint. Not much you can do about this. If you can actually remove the striker-wheel (this is sometimes possible, depending on the design of the lighter), then you can try filing in new grooves, but it’s a fiddly process. In most cases, a lighter with a worn-out striker wheel is a lost cause.

2). The striker-wheel is clogged.

Basically, the striker-wheel won’t strike because the grooves in the wheel won’t catch the flint. Same as above, except this time, they won’t catch the flint because the grooves that do the catching are clogged – usually with flint-dust from hundreds of previous strikings. You can fix this by using a needle or pin to scrape out all the gunk hiding inside the grooves. To make the process easier, you can try cleaning out the gunk using lighter-fluid, and cotton-buds.

3). The lighter won’t spark, but it has a new flint…?

Yeah this can happen from time to time. Usually the reason it won’t spark is because there isn’t enough pressure between the flint, and the wheel, which is regulated by the flint-spring (mentioned above).

To increase pressure, tighten the flint-tube cap. If the spring is really tired and worn out and dead, you can increase pressure in another way – put two flints into the tube, instead of one. This isn’t always possible, but if you can do it, it’s a cheap and dirty fix.

So How old is this Lighter?

Researching a number of online collections and catalogues suggests that this lighter is from ca. 1930, with a ‘wafer-pattern’ design on the body, as made by Dunhill in gold, silver, and brass (this is the brass model), the last of which could come with gold or silver plating as a variation. I doubt this one ever had any plating, but I love it, regardless!