ASR, Colibri, Dunhill, Dupont, Evans, Negbaur, MTC, Rolstar, Ronson, Rowenta, Zippo and many others... Price guide included! You will also find books, catalogs, patents and magazine advertisements on lighters!
Being a lighter collector you may experience a natural hunger for expanding your collection into related areas. Armed with an appreciation of design, mass media and a need for displaying your collection you may come across with another very collectible field: vintage magazine ads. This area of collecting is expanding rapidly as the ads can be also used as an interesting way to decorate homes or businesses. Vintage nostalgia does the trick!
Most of the best colorful full-page ads do come from these popular magazines:
Life (1936),
The Saturday Evening Post (1821),
Esquire (1932),
Time (1923),
Ebony (1945),
Punch, or the London Charivari (1841),
Collier's Weekly (1888),
Better Homes and Gardens (1922),
Look (1937–1971),
Plaisir de France (1934–1974),
L'Illustration (1843–1944).
If you have some old issues of the above mentioned magazines it worth a try to have a look into them. If you do not have them the best and simplest way to get your favorite lighters ads is eBay. The best search term is the word "ad" ("advert" in UK) along with other more specific search term like "Ronson", "lighter", "Dunhill" etc. The cost of one ad in most cases is between 5–10 USD. When you live in the United States it is also worth to visit garage sales and libraries as they start to digitize their resources and withdraw magazines – when you are lucky enough you may get a bargain.
If your ad was not very rare you might wish to have it framed. If you have doubts about putting the original ad into the frame (because of fading etc.) you should think about making a 1:1 copy which should cost you additional 2–3 USD. When framing please remember about passe-partout (2–3 inches; 5–7 cm wide) – the ad looks much better with it and you might hide the ads imperfections as well. You may also try frameless glass frames.
What is the best way to storage (archive) old magazine adverts?How to care on vintage ads? This question often appears as paper turns yellow and deteriorates over time. Exposure to light and heat break the molecules in the acidic paper even faster. To make the unwanted process as slow a possible just follow these three steps:
Put every ad into an individual transparent polypropylene (PP) sleeve protector or clear smudge proof pockets (A3 format is commonly available) and place a black backer board behind it. This is a good idea if you sometimes want to look at your ads and show them to your friends without the risk that they get stained, teared or bended. Most old ads are printed on a thin paper which also shows through some text and graphics from the other site – black backer board should help present them without this flaw. Do not use PVC sleeve protectors as they are not acid free and can harm your ads in long-term.
Place your protected magazines ads into a photo archive storage box. These boxes are made with acid-free material and will help prevent deterioration of your magazine ads.
The box with your ads should be stored in room temperature in a dry, dark place. Voilà!
Below a sample of 60 different Ronson ads.
Great ads were also made by ASR, Zippo (biggest advertiser), Dunhill, Evans, Scripto, Ritepoint, Berkeley, Flaminaire Quercia, Torence, Silver Match, Lancel (France), Mylflam and Rowenta (Germany) in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. In the later years nice ads were published among others by Colibri (UK) Cartier, S.T. Dupont (France) and Braun (Germany).
This blog mainly focuses on vintage wick and gas table, desk lighters manufactured in the years 1910–1970. For all lighters and accessories pictured in the blog, there is a comprehensive description, with dimensions, weight and values. Please see the grading standards and the value/scarcity assessment below.
Apart of lighters this blog will offer also other posts containing reviews of books for collectors, vintage ads, history of main lighters corporations, interesting facts and so on. The aim of this blog is to establish a comprehensive source of vintage cigarette lighters - the best you can find ever.
This is going to be a everyday intellectual adventure for every cigarette lighters collector. I hope you will enjoy reading this blog and pop in as frequently as possible.
The tendency of a clear trend is noticeable - more and more people are interested in collecting vintage lighters. This affects the lighters market and the prices tend to rise as the supply is very limited. This concerns especially models made in small quantities and good quality.
The market prices of the described table lighters are constantly monitored and brought up to date which means this blog offers you the best idea of the estimated price for you lighters. Currently my special designed software monitors and prepares reports on more than 250 million on-line auctions which are listed all over the world. Additionally I take the advantage of good developed collectors net and other references.
Please note that all suggested prices for lighters on this blog are quoted in the range of good condition to mint condition - that is why the price variation is so high. The poor condition and fair condition are not taken into account.
The taxonomy of comparative scarcity of lighters was prepared by many collectors. The best usability has got the taxonomy proposed by Urban K. Cummings:
Common: Lighters in this category were typically made in large quantities or in recent times or both. These would be the easiest to find and most readily abundant.
Uncommon: Less abundant than common category but not rare by any means. Not difficult to find.
Rare: This category would be considered more scarce than uncommon but still findable given sufficient time and the willingness to search.
Very rare: Very difficult to find. These lighters are seldom seen for sale. Usually found only in very complete collections.
Extremely rare: Extremely difficult to find. This category, the scarcest of all, belongs to those models which may have been made only in small quantities. Extremely rare to see them for sale.
Grading Standards
Mint: Void of any trace of use, wear or flaws. Perfect operating condition. Lighters that have come directly from the manufacturer without use are considered in this category. Original packaging, instructions and tags included. (MIB=Mint in box).
Excellent: Like new, no handling wear is apparent, evidence of use is minimal. May or not carry original box, packaging, instructions or tags.
Very good: Perfect working condition, may have slight imperfections, such as minor abrasions on enameled or plated surface. Void of chips, dents and scratches to the base metal.
Good: Good working condition. Some evidence of use: scratches, minor dents, small chips in enameled surfaces, plating 90% intact with minimal base metal showing through. Flaws must not detract from overall appearance of the lighter.
Fair: Lighter is operational with no missing parts. May have severe scratches and some denting, enamel may be missing or faded, printing or engraved images may be worn and unreadable.
Poor: Lighter need not be working and may be missing parts.
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