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:

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.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. unexpectedly gross things about living in a medieval castle on Living in a Castle – What was it Like? 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. 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. 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.

Most people in lighter-collecting circles will likely have heard of IMCO, and if you haven’t, here’s a brief introduction: 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: Did soldiers in the First World War ever make their own trench-art lighters out of scraps of brass and copper that they found lying around in the trenches, probably while in hospital or on leave, to kill time and have something to do?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. 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. 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!

Du kan ikke fortryde ved blot at nægte modtagelse af varen, uden samtidig at give tydelig meddelelse herom. 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.Honestly, I have no idea. But it perplexed, and later, perturbed me, that so many people were being unknowingly and unwillingly conned or misled into thinking that they were buying some sort of legitimate and original First World War cigarette lighter made on the Western Front or in the trenches or something. The sheer QUANTITY of these so-called ‘handmade’, ‘homemade’ lighters, supposedly produced out of stuff they found lying around in the trenches, should alone, make it a suspect piece, to say nothing of the fact that they all look exactly the same.