Zippo Lighters - A History

Posted on January 28, 2008
Filed Under Lighters |

The Zippo Manufacturing Company was founded in 1932 in Bradford, Pennsylvania by George Blaisdell. The first Zippo lighter was manufactured the following year in 1933. The first lighter design was based on an existing lighter manufactured in Austria at the time. The name of the company and lighter, Zippo, came about solely because of Blaisdell’s liking of the way the name sounded.

The lighter gained in popularity following World War II and soon people were known to have started collecting them. Many of the lighters that ended up in collections were hand painted or customized in other ways. People have gone on to master a number of hand tricks that can be accomplished with the Zippo lighters. Since 1933, over 400 million Zippo lighters have been manufactured and sold while the basic operational mechanism has remain largely unchanged.

2002 and 2005 were notable years in the history of the Zippo Manufacturing Company as it was in those years that Zippo expanded into the multi-purpose lighter market (2002) and then the outdoor utility lighter market (2005). These lighters operated on butane fuel, in 2007 Zippo would follow with a new butane fueled cigarette lighter.

The Zippo name continues to mean reliability and quality in the lighter market and shows no end to its acceptance as the leader in the world of lighters.

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