VintageLighters Blog

With a deep and heartfelt bow to Mr. Urban Cummings and his magnificent work “Ronson, The World’s Greatest Lighter” I reproduce for you here a paraphrased excerpt of figure number 297 - Walking Cane.

At least three versions of the WALKING CANE with built-in lighter were made. (The Original) is the personal property of Louis V. Aronson II. Other versions contain a chromium plated lighter, and although the cover plates appear to be the same, different lighter mechanisms were used. It is assumed that the gold plated version was the original model. At some point the decision must have been made to use an existing lighter mechanism because one chromium plated version appears to have the same mechanism as that used on the “Beauticase”. Another chrome plated version uses the Old Standard mechanism. The original model is a cane with umbrella handle. The later versions. with the chrome plated fitment, were used on both umbrella handle canes and on straight canes made with exotic wood such as ebony and trimmed with ivory or plastic.

EXTREMELY RARE.

Copyright, Urban Cummings, “Ronson, The World’s Greatest lighter”

 

A beautiful piece of work by any standard. We have a Ronson Walking Cane for sale on the International Vintage Lighter Exchange. We are very curious to know how many of these there are floating around out there. Especially the ones with the gold plated lighter plate. Let us know, should you care to reply.

 June 25, 2007 ‑ July 03, 2007 • Event Venue:  

Sheraton Premiere at Tysons Corner
8661 Leesburg Pike
Vienna, Virginia, United States (next to Washington DC)
Phone (703) 448-1234 • Fax (703) 610-8293

The 21st Annual On The LIGHTER Side Convention is dedicated to the hobby of collecting lighters. This is an annual gathering of collectors from around the world who show and display lighters from the 1800’s to present, all makes, models, shapes and sizes. The event brings in hundreds of members from the US, Japan, England, Germany etc. Over 80 tables are set up for buying, selling and swapping. Some of the world’s rarest lighters will be on display including Cartier, Dunhill, Ronson, Tiffany and Zippos. Free appraisals will be offered to the public on Saturday, June 30, 2007 from 10:00AM to 3:00PM. Come on by and bring your lighters!
Group rate available until May 26, 2007. Subject to availability.

For more information/Reservations: CLICK HERE, or call Sheraton Premier at: (703) 448-11234 and mention “OTLS” for special rates.

OTLS was founded in 1983 with 3 members. We currently have approximately 900 members in 16 countries. This club is for collectors of any type lighter — Ronson, Zippo, Evans, European, etc. We also have a few members who collect other categories of tobacciana, such as ash trays, smoking stands, Case & Zippo knives (Case Knife Co. is now owned by Zippo).

The club has a bi-monthly newsletter. In addition to the 6 issues, the March issue always contains a separate “Convention Letter” with details of our annual convention. Our annual convention is always in June, in different cities.

If you are interested in joining the OTLS lighter club, visit their website at www.OTLS.com.

 a fantastic idea here .. a great way for collectors to communicate and share resources .. best of luck

Although the majority of this blog deals with lighters and collecting of the vintage variety, the rapidly surmounting problems caused by the S.T. Dupont and Alfred Dunhill “knockoffs” that roam the internet these days are definitely worthy of a post. Feeding the misery of legitimate new lighter retailers, the fake lighters out there can be quite convincing to the untrained eye (and sometimes even the trained eye) prompting the accusation of retailers as being “rip-off artists”.

“I see the same lighter that you are selling for $695.00, on eBay for $295.00!” Yes, eBay seems to be the primary conduit for the reproductions, usually coming from such countries England, Singapore, Hong Kong, etc… The buyer will see the lighter for sale at an insanely low price that is too good to possibly pass up, buy it, and receive the lighter in a perfectly legal eBay transaction. The problem is that usually by the second or third filling of butane gas, the lighter mysteriously stops working.

How many depressed or outraged customers we’ve had at our repair service with one of these knock-offs is impossible to say. Some get really angry and storm out. Some get that low, “I’ve been suckered” look across their faces. Others roll their eyes in the realization that the lighter they received as a gift was not so impressive as previously thought. But regardless of the reaction, all know they are victims of a scam with a worthless piece of junk.

At first we could only tell the real from the fake upon taking them apart and observing the internal parts. However, subtle and not-so-subtle clues have made themselves apparent over the months that I will point out to you here. Please understand though, the Dupont fakes are, for the most part, REALLY good fakes. The Dunhill’s are sometimes passable, other times laughable.

Showing you the front, back, sides or top of a Dupont is pointless as it is nearly impossible to tell the real from the faux. However, the bottom of the lighters reveal the important clues.

Can you tell the difference? Of course you can’t, and this is the main problem with using this to identify authenticity in these lighters; you’ve got to have pretty good eyesight and attention for detail.

Here’s a close-up (click the picture to see it full size):

See any difference yet? Which one do you think is real? If you said the one on the right…

…you’d be absolutely wrong.

The lighter on the left is the real Dupont. Dupont lighters are finished by hand, and the lighter on the right looks too perfect to be real. Specifically, the serial number/letter combo on the bottom there is the dead giveaway. See how the code on the left is kind of slanted, and the characters are uneven in relation to one another? The characters on the right are lined up like good little soldiers. Too perfect=bad.

Dunhill

This one is a little more obvious–fitting snugly into the “laughable” category as far a Dunhill reproductions are concerned. Anyone who has ever owned a Dunhill butane lighter before will easily recognize the characteristic keyhole-shaped screw on the lower-right of the lighter on the right of this picture. The thumb button in the center is also a dead-giveaway, but be cautious because some of the newest Dunhill lighters no longer have this feature, instead opting for the pull bar screw handle that is more characteristic of the Dupont lighters, and unfortunately represented by the fake lighter on the left.

Of course the problem here is how on earth do you determine what the serial numbers and thumb-screws and pull bars look like when buying a new lighter on eBay? You don’t. If it looks like an incredible deal on a new lighter, it’s on eBay, it’s not from a legitimate reseller of Dupont and Dunhill products, chances are that it’s not a “real” lighter. For Dupont lighters, you can contact Colibri (they import ST Dupont lighters) at 401-943-2100 to verify if a particular store is a legitimate reseller. Dunhill is a little harder (unfortunately).

We are legitimate resellers of Alfred Dunhill and S.T. Dupont lighters. Our websites: Elegantlighters.com and Vintagelighters.com.

Remember the old saying: “If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.” I Couldn’t have said it better myself.

The Ronson Company located in Newark New Jersey, originally started out as the Art Metal Works Company in the late 1890’s making many types of decorative items such as bookends, lamps, statues, trophy’s, incense burners and other home decorative items. Many of the items were fashioned after European and Asian designs.

During the advent of the flint, the Art Metal Works Company began producing lighters, both pocket and table models and the first versions were called striker lighters using a simple system of striking a piece of flint with a steel rod wrapped with naphtha soaked asbestos. The steel rod, when struck against the flint would cause a spark which in turn ignited the asbestos wick which was soaked with this lighter fluid.

The owner of The Arts Metals Works Company, Louis V. Aronson then had the idea of a much easier system for lighting cigarettes and cigars and his company invented one of the first automatic lighters called the Banjo. In a one stroke motion, the lighter would ignite and then stuff out the flame. This “press it lights, release its out” motion became one of the most copied actions in the lighter manufacturing business. Louis Aronson was able to incorporate this lighting mechanism in many of its decorative items turning the lamps, statues, and other home decorative items into table model lighters. One of their most famous systems was the Ronson Touch Tip Lighter. This mechanism used a removable rod which would ignite when pressed onto the lighting mechanism and allowed the user to bring the rod to the item to be lit making it an easy system to use. Hundreds of different objects d’ arte incorporated the touch tip mechanism. The famous movie “The Maltese Falcon” featured one model of the Ronson Touch Tip lighters. The Ronson Bartender Touch Tip is probably the most famous of all the touch tip line. Many different designs were produced incorporating cigarette boxes, ashtrays and clocks.

Ronson produced the very popular pencil lighter starting in the mid 30’s in various forms and finishes. Some of the most beautiful lighters were made incorporating and cigarette case and lighter combination in many varied enameled deco designs. With the advent of the butane lighter during the late 1950’s, Ronson capitalized on this new and better system with their famous line of Ronson Varaflame Lighters.