Vintage ART DECO brushed chrome and ribbed brass table lighter with a four chevron design on the thumb lever. (c. 1920s - 1930s) This vintage cigarette table lighter looks to be in very good condition with no damage to note. There does seem to be a very tiny amount of "glue squeeze" within the brass area.
"A lighter is the epitome of a great idea, designed brilliantly and executed with the highest level of precision engineering," says Richard Ball, a London-based dealer and the founder of the 220-member nonprofit Lighter Club of Great Britain.
The earliest lighters were tinder pistols, invented in the mid-seventeenth century, shortly after the first flintlock firearms were made Resourceful gunsmiths began recycling broken pistols, using the barrel to store tinder rather than gunpowder. The trigger released a mechanism that struck a piece of iron and directed the sparks onto the tinder, which would ignite. Table tinder pistols were often combined with candlesticks, clocks and inkwells, while pocket models were designed to be carried like a weapon.
In 1823, German chemist Johann Wolfgang Döbereiner created a table lighter that used hydrogen gas to produce a flame. But Döbereiner's lamps, though convenient, were apt to explode. The solution arrived about 60 years later with the fusee, an early version of the wick lighter. A steel wheel struck a flint, producing sparks that ignited the fusee (a piece of cord submerged in fuel).
In 1903, Austrian chemist Carl Auer von Welsbach combined iron and cerium to create "Auer metal," which essentially became the small flint still used in lighters today. Welsbach's invention made lighters more efficient, safer and ultimately more popular --one flick of a finger produced a spark. http://www.johnfloresgraphics.com/lighterReferences.html
This vintage Art Deco brushed chrome and brass table cigarette lighter measures 3.25" x 1.25", 2-5/8" high and weighs 12.6 ounces. Even under 40X magnification, we are unable to ascertain the raised maker's mark. (looks similar to 11 - 1 - 1 ̶l̶l̶l̶ , perhaps Chinese characters?)
A2492 - Vintage BRUSHED CHROME & BRASS Art Deco Table Lighter
$42.00
