I don't have a tuned car, a modded PC or anything, but I figured out something I can finally out myself as an enthusiast about. Lighters! Don't actually smoke regularly, but I love disassembling, restoring and maintaining old lighters. My baby: Anyone else? I'm guessing there's at least a couple of Zippo nuts around here, there's quite a Venn overlap between Zippos and PC gaming (for some reason) edit - included 'smoking equipment' because hey, pipes and cigarette holders don't have a thread yet either. And pipes are badass.
I'd love to get my hands on some more zippo lighters.... all I have is a plain zippo black crackle finish which I bought a few years back, and a quite old one branded with the logo of an oil company my grandfather worked for.
I have a couple of Zippos, gotta love playing with fire. Two fakes; a Resevoir Dogs branded one (plain silver with the logo on one side) and one that may have once had some awesome finish on it but is now mostly scratched copper colour, with a few spots of black remaining. Found it in my dads car once after it went in for a service. Both could do with new wicks, the second one needs a new flint and probably wheel as well. I have two actual Zippos, one plain matt black finish I bought on the bay just to have one, and a Jack Daniels one my friend bought me as a groomsman present. I was rather chuffed, the other two got wallets. Can't seem to find a picture of it online, I'll maybe take one later. I don't even smoke...
We're a non-smoking family, and my Dad has a flip-top Zippo! PS: I think we have the same toolkit, based on that yellow handle. Is it a tri-fold kit?
I'd buy a butane lighter, but they're horribly unreliable. Although I'm not worried about the taste of the cigar per se, rather just that it isn't worth the money. I'm a poor man that sticks to matches. On the other hand, I'd kill for a good Zippo. Or at least a reliable butane, but they're so expensive.
Have a look around on ebay, I've got 20 or so decent zippo's and a couple of cheap (unreliable) butanes from there, you can often find them for under a tenner if you look hard enough. *goes to check ebay to buy some more*
I inherited my Dad's pipe collection. I don't smoke anymore, but when I did, the pipes were for special occasions. Some big, some small, some hand made, some made of meerschaum, some extremely rare (as in one built every year for a special occasion amongst Bremen based trade ship captains, etc.
Nice vintage Ronson. What did you need to clean up to get the flame so high? The flame on my model only goes up about 9mm
I'm from a non-smoking family and don't smoke myself, but have quite a few lighters. I always have to have one on me at work (for lighting gas torches and irons) and like October, I have a soft spot for Zippo's I think I have 5 in total, two of them are pretty good fakes and the other three are genuine ones. I also have a couple of piezo-electric "Blazer" blue flame lighters like the PB-207 which is my favourite. My Zippo designs are an American Flag, an American Eagle, petrol/pearlescent coloured, brushed black and a vintage Coca-Cola design. The fakes are the American flag and the brushed black one. I knew what I was getting with the flag zippo, but I thought I was buying a genuine with the brushed black one which was a disappointment when I got it. It was expensive for a fake, but it's a very good imitation. My soft spot (read: obsession) for lighters is still nowhere near as big as my "soft spot" (OBSESSION) with flashlights though Today I am carrying my ever reliable Bitz Pocket Titanium with my Fenix L0D backup on my keychain. I am not carrying a lighter at present, although there is a cheapie refillable Clipper in my toolbox in the car
I always have my old trusty zippo to hand along with a spare cheapo lighter, have a nice metal clipper for use at work. Not sure if you'd call it smoking equipment but I'm using this whilst i work from home, will switch to it full time one of these days;
I only have one lighter, a titanium Zippo - The limited edition one. I'm not a smoker >.> I did used to have a black zippo, but I've no idea where that got to over the years.
I have about 1000 20p disposables piled up which take about an hour to go through and find one that is working every half an hour..does that count? Yes, my mathematics checks out. ok?
My uncle was a smoker and had a collection of lighters he would collect I think he had around 1000 by the time he died, it was'nt a collection he would go out to get sepcially it was just ones he picked up over his lifetime from places he visited and just was a habit if he went on holidays he might come back with 20 different style lighters or his friends would find them and give them to him knowing how much he liked them.
I'm not a smoker, so I don't collect lighters or other smoking equipment. If I did, I would probably use some old cool lighter like yours. Although I owned one once, I'm not a huge fan on the actually Zippo-lighters. The only lighter I own, that is worht mentioning in this thread, is a Brunton Firestorm. It is a stormproof lighter that I keep in my camping/hiking kit.
Here's my Zippo. I don't smoke, either... There's a (non-turbo) butane insert on the way now. ...and I have a PB207 around here somewhere, as well.
Good to see some other zippo/lighter nuts on Bit. I'm a non- smoker but always had a fascination about them. This time last year I had about 20 different zippo’s and a few fakes. Now I’m down to 9 zippo’s, 2 fakes and a handful of disposables. Always useful to have about the place my current EDC zippo is a black ice 1941 replica.
I have 8 zippos... I'll go get pics... I only have an iphone so ill have to take pictures in the day time when light is better. top row: D day commemorative lighter - never lit, solid brass (really old and warn, probably wont light anymore more), crappy plain silver my old faithful, 82nd airbourne commemorative lighter, zambeze river souvenir, Bottom row: absolutely stunning silver plated pinstripe zippo: engraved "<3 Tasha" (obviously this one is cursed, present from my ex, not bitter), solid brass: another from africa has a really nice engraving of a lions head will have to get a better picture, rizla original collectors zippo Rizla original is the lighter of choice these days, or the african solid brass - though im always scared ill lose this so i rarely use it anymore.
I have a collection of about 50 lighters. Some zippo's and a few like the OP. I'll get a picture edit: Here it is, bad, but workable. Most of them work, although some need refilling. There is one thing in the collection that is not a lighter, but still kinda fits in here. A cookie for the one finding and defining it. Even if you don't count the disposables (who are all special, either in build in features (bottle opener, light, whatever) or in emotional value (stuff i got from people)), there are more than 60 here, and there is more but they are in another box. The boobs I got from my (now ex-)girlfriend. No, I do not smoke.
I've got a matt black Zippo, and smoke cigars maybe once every three or four months (light those with matches, obviously). I think of it as a bit like a Swiss Army knife, in the sense that you never know when you'll need a flame, but this is let down by just how quickly the damned things dry out. I heard talk above of butane inserts for the Zippo frames... Anyone got any they could recommend? Or, better yet, got a no-holds-barred absolutely reliable lighter they can recommend? I'm a fetishist for pocketable precision machinery.
Goddamn, that's a nice collection. Is the odd one out the novelty fake cigarette on the right? edit - I think I just pulled the wick up slightly for that. I don't think I've removed or messed with the cotton inside, because this lighter has no easy way of doing it (you'd have to drag it all out and then reinsert it through that tiny coin-hole at the bottom) so I've never changed the wick. I'm desperately hoping I'll never have to, because I can't imagine how you'd do it. Changing the flint is bad enough, it takes about 5 hands - or two hands, several hours and a lot of swearing. The real boon of this lighter is that it never dries out, ever, because of the tiny cover cap which makes a very tight seal and the rubber-sealed coin-hole at the bottom. I think this kind of design is much more effective than the zippo, I'm not sure why zippos became the standard.