It’s the cool metal clicking sound. I don’t even smoke, and I like to have one around for that whole “make fire!” thing as well.
Except I lost my Milk & Cheese-decorated Zippo (them running around with Zippos yelling “Burn, Baby, Burn!”) and now I don’t think I can ever find as nice of a Zippo again. 
Are you sure that’s not mine? I’ve lost one twice and another once, both gold-filled. I bought a chrome replacement and I never lose that one. Bummer. I wich they’d make a pushbutton retractable one.
Back to OP. I have a Zippo with the seal of my naval unit on one side and my name engraved on the other. Got it when I left my duty station in '66. Don’t know if it works or not. Never used it. Don’t smoke. Never did. Never will.
Well, you don’t hold the lighter upside down when lighting a pipe. You hold it sideways and suck the flame down into the bowl by sucking air into the mouth part.
.
Huge, extremely fast, bad tempered, mostly aquatic mammals?
:eek:
Zippos work the best for encores at rock concerts. You can hold them by the bottom and not burn your fingers.
Zippos are cool, man.
It’s not a question about how you grip it. It is about the nasty by-products from the combustion of the fuel, that you don’t get from a butane lighter.
And then catch your shirt on fire, so you are a flaming mess when you get shoved underneath the train . . .
But I digress.
I love my Zippo. I don’t use it any more, but I love it. It’s sturdy, reliable, and has never failed on me. But it’s really only useful if you’re going to A) use it regularly and B) maintain it regularly. When I was a pack a day man, I would check the lighter as part of my nightly ritual, along with dumping my change and winding my watch. I refilled it nightly, checked the wick and flints, and I had a lighter which never failed to light, first time, every time.
Zippos are not no-maintenance items. You do have to do a little work to them. I’ve had a Zippo for the last 10 years or so, the same one for maybe the last 7. You do need to change the wick occasionally (pull out cotton, insert new wick, change flint while you’re there, reinsert cotton, add fluid, and go to town). It costs 50 cents. Maybe a weekly fluid add (don’t fill it and it won’t spill and you won’t get burned), and a monthly or so flint change, and your investment will light every single time. Flame too high? Trim the wick. With a sharp pair of scissors, it’s not hard. A q-tip around the inside of the chimney now and then only takes a second too.
Taken care of, they’re so much better than cheap ass bics. You spend $30 on a lighter, you tend to look after it a little better. Someone asks for a light, you light it with a Zippo (big-time chivallry points) rather than casually handing off your bic. If youmust put it down or hand it off, you’re in the habit of looking to see where it goes, and you get it as soon as it it not in use.
And careful you don’t lump counterfiet Zippos or Zippo look-alikes into your wrath. They suck. A lot.
Spend the few extra bucks, get yourself the real deal from Bradford, and when you teach your grandkids how to smoke, you can pass along a still functional heirloom.
You’re using a scene from a **MOVIE **to question Zippos’ reliability?
Man, I hope you never watch a Wisk commercial.
I have a Zippo that was manufactured in 1966 (you can tell the age of a Zippo from the code on the bottom of it) that was given to me in 1968. The hinge on the cap was loose, so it didn’t close properly, so I never used it much (and I don’t smoke, so I mainly used it to light incense and candles).
I finally got around to sending it back to Zippo a little over a year ago and they fixed it for free, sent me a cute little Zippo key chain and a brochure that explains how to tell how old your lighter is–and returned all the parts they took out of it when they fixed it.
They used to have the greatest ads, showing off how people’s mangled old Zippos looked before they had fixed them for free. The only one that they couldn’t fix (and replaced, for free) was one that got run over by a tank.
So go ahead and flick your Bic, but if one of them gets run over by a tank you’ll have to buy a new one all your own self.
P.S. I just lit my Zippo 10 times in a row. Paul, what are you driving, and when can I expect delivery? 
I found a Zippo melting out of the ice along the road one day when I lived up in New York. After I’d cleaned it up a little I noticed it had a solder outline on it where a US Marine Corps eagle and anchor had been attached to it at one point. I took it to the American Legion that was a bit down the street and they knew whose it was, since he’d been lamenting it’s loss for the past month.
Apparently he’d had the same Zippo since Korea.
Great story, nice thing to do - kudos. See, he woudn’t have kept it and you wouldn’t have returned it if it had been a Bic.
On a related tangent, when I was travelling through Vietnam, I discovered there is a thriving trade in fake war-era Zippos: the lighters are real, but they engrave “Semper Fi” or somesuch on them, kick them round in the street until they look suitably battered and aged, and sell them by the score in market stalls to gullible tourists as “authentic” war souvenirs: course, you can tell the real age by looking at the bottom.
[hijack]
That scene from Four Rooms is probably ‘inspired’ by a Roald Dahl story,
Man from the South.
[/hijack]
I use Bics. Why? I lose my lighters a lot. But Bics always come back.
Here’s my theory…
When you lose a lighter, it’s not really lost. It’s off in an alternate dimension, communing with its brethren. To share knowledge with other implements of fire, and worship the great fire gods such as Prometheus and Ahura Mazda. Bic lighters have little knowledge to share and little capability to learn, so they return after a few days or weeks. Sometimes they forget, and go back, but they always return.
Zippos, on the other hand, are regarded as wise elders in the alternate dimension. They stay in this dimension for years, learning the ways of conflagration. When they go to share their knowledge in the alternate dimension, they are praised as prophets and shamans. They are truly needed there, so they will not return to our realm until the next ice age.
No, see that’s Bic Socialism in action - Bic Socialists adopt the same approach to plastic ballpoints: what’s yours is mine. And we all know where that leads, don’t we? COMMUNISM! Dirty Red infiltrators hiding under our beds, just waiting to “redistribute” our pens and lighters while we slumber unawares. You know Bic is a FRENCH company, don’t you? Proves my point. Well, not on MY watch - that’s why I have a Zippo lighter and a Cross fountain pen, and they ain’t gettin’ THEM until they pry them outta my cold, dead hands.
Okay, I’ve just scanned the thread. Sorry if I’m repeating.
I have a few Zippo lighters around. My favourite one is the plain (not brushed) finished silver one.
One complaint was that Zippos don’t ‘light every time’. Actually, it was Ronson whose slogan was that it lights ‘First time, Every time.’ (I’ve heard the Germans in WWII called the M-4 Sherman ‘Ronson’.)
The flame ‘lasts too long’? Uh… You could close the cover. That’s what it’s for.
They go out in a light wind? I’ve never had that problem with mine. I find my Zippo is much better at lighting in windy conditions than a disposable Bic.
Cigars should be lit with a wooden match.
I’ve lit pipes with my Zippo, and had no trouble. The flame of a Bic will rise just as a Zippo’s will. It’s in the nature of flames.
I don’t know how many Zippos I have. One is in a frame with my dad’s Navy ribbons, shoulder boards, 7th Fleet patch, etc. It was his, and has the 7th Fleet shield on it. Another is from a ship he was on – the USS Merrick, I think – and has an engraving of the ship. Another of dad’s Zippos has an aligator on it, from the logo of another ship.
As for my own, I have the plain silver one I got in the '80s. After I lost it, I got one with a brushed finished. I also got a black one. Then I found the first one. I have a grey one with a cartoon image on it that Rilchiam alerted me to and that I thought was neat. That’s the only one I haven’t lit.
I also have a pseudo-Zippo that a friend gave to me. Out of all of the lighters, this is the one that would not light except right after it was filled.
And yes, I’ve overfilled a Zippo and had it leak on my thigh. It was the time a guy jumped off a bridge over the Sepulveda Pass and backed up traffic for hours. I decided to turn around and RON at a friend’s place. So, I’ve burned my thigh with the fluid once. Once.
For me, Zippo is my dad.
The “clink” when it opens. The smell of the fluid. It’s all dad.
Dad died a few years ago with COPD from a lifetime of smoking but whenever I see, hear, or smell a Zippo, a little part of Dad is still here.
If I were a habitual smoker, I’d have a Zippo. But I smoke only the occasional pipe and cigar – neither of which is suitable Zippo fare. I carry a lighter because I, too, am a firm believer in having the ability to make fire. I’ve taken to carrying a Calibri pen-shaped butane lighter. No maintenance except the occasional refill, and much more stylin’ than a Bic. It’s a great pipe lighter to boot, which is a big plus for me. For cool points, you can’t beat a Zippo, but my little Calibri is a decent compromise.
Zippos. Meh.
Well, alright, Zippos are pretty cool. But, here’s what you need when a Zippo just won’t do.
Who would do that? And why?