Old lighter, (zaibatsu), 09/13/2019 ------------------------------------------------------------ Before my grandfather passed away he had me take some things out of his house that he felt some of his grandchildren might want. Among them were a few zippo lighters. No one else wanted them, and I've always had a soft place for fire and lighters (my dad smoked, I never did, but I did carry around a zippo as a teen), so then ended up with me. I gave the shiny/fancy one to my son (he loves making fires, fire building, pyro-chemistry, etc), and I kept the beat up old one for myself. I got to thinking about if there was some way to identify the age on these, and turned to the wider internet. Zippo hosts a page for identification[1]. For convenience, I'll replicate the info in ascii below this post. The beat up older lighter turned out to be from 1968, while the shiny newer lighter turned out to be from 1997. I got the better lighter, obviously, because it's been places. Probably just in my grandpa's pocket, and probably mostly in Texas and Arizona, but still. I love old stuff, especially old stuff with stories. Zippo Logos ----------- 1933-1954 The word ZIPPO, all upper-case, simple sans-serif type face 1955-1979 The word ZIPPO, all upper-case, calligraphic Scripts type face with a distinct swosh on the leading/top of the "Z" that seems to imply a whisp of smoke 1980-2019 The word zippo, all lower-case, distinct light serif font, the "z" and "i" are connected, the dot on the "i" is a pictogram of a flame, the curve on the two "p" characters does not finish into a complete circle Zippo Date Markings ------------------- 1933 "Patent Pending" 1937-c1950 "Patent 2032695" 1942-1946 "Black Crackle, Patent 203695" (stamp error) c1950-c1957 "Patent 2517191 with patent pending" 1958 "PatentPending" **** **** 1959 **** **** 1960 *** *** 1961 *** ** 1962 ** ** 1963 ** * 1964 * * 1965 * 1966 |||| |||| 1967 |||| ||| 1968 ||| ||| 1969 ||| || 1970 || || 1971 || | 1972 | | 1973 | 1974 //// //// 1975 //// /// 1976 /// /// 1977 /// // 1978 // // 1979 / // or // / 1980 / / 1981 / 1982 \\\\ \\\\ 1983 \\\\ \\\ 1984 \\\ \\\ 1985 \\\ \\ 1986 \\ \\ or G to L || 1987 A to L ||| 1988 A to L IV 1989 A to L V 1990 A to L VI 1991 A to L VII 1992 A to L VIII 1993 A to L IX 1994 A to L X 1995 A to L XI 1996 A to L XII 1997 A to L XIII 1998 A to L XIV 1999 A to L XV 2000 A to L XVI 2001 A to L 01 etc. [1] https://www.zippo.com/pages/date-codes