IMCO Lighter, Stainless Steel

Product Information

Cigarette lighters as we recognise them today were invented in the late 1800s. Early models were unbelievably crude by modern standards, but IMCO got the idea that if they could come up with one good, cheap, simple design, then they could mass produce them, and become the Henry Ford Company of cigarette lighters! It’s been remarked by a number of people that those who collect one area of antiques will often branch out into other areas. Typically, for guys, at least, these areas are: In the days before stainless steel, a lot of metal products were made of brass, because of its ability to resist rusting and most forms of corrosion. The biggest source of brass in Austria at the time was the millions and millions and MILLIONS of leftover shell-casings from the First World War.

Note - some info is missing, as I don't own an early or middle period 6700, but I have seen some, so I've made some assumptions where the information seems obvious. Also, the dates of manufacture for all lighters are educated guesses. During the conflict, ZIPPO ceased manufacturing lighters for the civilian market, and sold exclusively to the armed forces. Because brass was required for the war-effort, wartime Zippos were made exclusively of steel – the first, last and only time in their history when the lighter wasn’t made of brass (except of course, for when it was made of silver or gold).

Du skal sende din ordre retur uden unødig forsinkelse og senest 14 dage efter, at du har gjort brug af din fortrydelsesret. Du skal afholde de direkte udgifter i forbindelse med returnering. Når du returnerer, er du ansvarlig for, at varen er pakket ordentligt ind. Du skal vedlægge en kopi af ordrebekræftelsen i pakken. Ekspeditionen går hurtigere, hvis du ligeledes udfylder og vedlægger vores Fortrydelsesformular. IMCO windproof lighers are very versatile. Besides being used as a lighter for cigarettes and pipes they can also be used to light fireplaces, candles and campfires. These lighters are easy to fill with lighter fluid and have a replaceable flint. Fortrydelse skal anmeldes til os senest 14 dage efter købet og fra fortrydelsen skal du senest 14 dage efter returnere forsendelsen. Meddelelsen skal gives pr. mail på [email protected]. I meddelelsen skal du gøre tydeligt opmærksom på, at du ønsker at benytte din fortrydelsesret. Ønsker du at sende varen retur til os, skal du udfylde den vedlagte Returseddel og sende varen til: The ‘deal’ is that almost every single one of these lighters – be they originals from the 1920s, or (much more common), reproductions made in China or elsewhere – are always sold as ‘trench’ lighters, a moniker which is not only massively misleading, but also blatantly incorrect, for reasons I will explain below. That means that for the IMCO lighter to be a REAL ‘trench’ lighter, it would have to have been made out of actual battlefield materials. Which it never was. Even if the brass which was used to manufacture it came from old shell-casings that were melted down and reused, that doesn’t constitute a trench lighter, since it wasn’t made by a soldier on active duty during the war, out of actual field materials. That’s not to say that actual trench lighters don’t exist – they certainly do – but the IMCO lighter from 1920 is not one of them.

Blowing gently on the captured sparks creates the necessary heat to ignite the rope, creating an ember. This ember can be used to light a cigarette or start a fire. Since it doesn’t require lighter fluid and doesn’t actually create a flame, the ‘foxhole’ lighter was popular with sailors, soldiers and campers, and anybody else who might need to start a fire without the aid of combustibles, matches or a conventional cigarette lighter. Får det sidste parti, eller sidste del i fysisk besiddelse, når det drejer sig om aftale af levering af varer, der består af flere partier/dele. A ‘trench’ lighter is a type of ‘trench art’. ‘Trench art’ is anything decorative or functional, handmade by soldiers while out in the fields or in the trenches during battle, or by soldiers recuperating or on-leave from the battlefront, using materials scavenged or saved or found on the battlefield. Usually such items are things like shell casings, bullet-casings, and metal from food tins or cans of meat and so on.Most people in lighter-collecting circles will likely have heard of IMCO, and if you haven’t, here’s a brief introduction: Aaanyway. Enough of that. I am creating this posting for the very real purpose of it being a public service to the collecting community, and the subject of this posting is, as the title says: IMCO lighters! Or specifically, one particular IMCO lighter, which I’ll be talking about later on. Here are all the ways I know to differentiate the IMCO 6600, 6700, and 6800 from all periods of their manufacture, including the new Chinese-made versions.

Den første vare i fysisk besiddelse, når det drejer sig om regelmæssig levering af varer over en bestemt periode. Unfortunately, Imco closed their factory years ago, and surviving lighters are old, sometimes rusty or worn, and increasingly expensive as collector items. I recently discovered that a Japanese company bought the rights to the Imco lighter from the original company. They have started manufacturing them again (in China) and, in my opinion, have improved the lighter in terms of fit, finish and quality. The biggest improvement is that they are now making them out of stainless steel (although the fuel tank is aluminum like the originals). It uses regular Zippo flints, and has a space for storing a spare in the lighter mechanism. Something else to know if you prefer lighter fluid. Commercial lighter fluid is naphtha, which is what Coleman fuel is made from. If you get a small plastic squirt bottle, like a N algene two ounce bottle with small spout, and a gallon of Coleman fuel, you can keep your lighter fueled for many years.

For something to qualify as ‘trench art’, it has to have been made by a soldier during either the First or the Second World War, while on the front lines (or while on active duty during the wars) using materials available on the battlefield. Now, whether or not IMCO ever used these casings in their ‘raw’ form to make their first lighters is unknown. Going by photographs I’ve seen, I would say that it was very unlikely. It is possible that they simply used the brass bullet-casings, melted them down and remade the reclaimed metal into the necessary parts they needed, but didn’t use the actual casings themselves to manufacture the lighters.