Military Zippo lighters

[Chris Boonzaier]

I know the most comman ones we see are the zillions of fake Vietnam era ones.... but here is a factory one. it is for the French Division in Desert Storm. I bought one back when they came out... lost it... and picked another one up on ebay, also original from back then.....

[Stuka f]

Nice one! 

And crap my Vietnam lighters are fake's...:-(, no problem, don't know where they ended...

But here is a good Korean one(it came from a house clearing I did);

 

[GRA]

One of my souvenirs from national service...

/Jonas

[Alex K]

My contribution

[peter monahan]

A friend recently visited the Zippo factory and I gather from several of his remarks that one can purchase many of these 'historic' designs there.

[Alex K]

Hi My operation Granby one was given to me by the brother (A non smoker) of a serving soldier who received out in the Gulf at the time of the operation, so I assume it to be an authentic "Original", if I recall I've certainly had it since around that time, Unorttunately since a recent house move Its most probably lurking in some forgotten trunk

regards

[peter monahan]

I know the feeling!  I have three rooms devoted to military clobber of various types and periods and can put my hands on all of it.  Just not necessarily when I want or need to!

 

[RichardB]

Hello Chris Boonzair 

How do you spot a fake Vietnam era Zippo i have 1 for the U.S special forces ,which i will take a pic and post many thanks 

[Chris Boonzaier]

On 01/11/2018 at 13:24, peter monahan said:

A friend recently visited the Zippo factory and I gather from several of his remarks that one can purchase many of these 'historic' designs there.

The problem there is that Zippos have a date code on the bottom, so if there is a Desert Storm design with a 1994 dated Zippo then you know it is not good.

Added to that, it would be financially not interessting for them to stock them "just in case" someone comes by 30 years later for an "Op Granby" one. You risk producing 50 extra "Op Granby" Zippos and selling only 3-4 of them over the next couple of decades because most people would not think of going directly to the factory, but would probably go to ebay to get one.

I am thinking generic Military designs are kept in stock, stuff they know has always sold well and always will... e.g. USMC, or 1st Cav design, or US Jump wings.... there will always be a need for that....

[Chris Boonzaier]

18 hours ago, RichardB said:

Hello Chris Boonzair 

How do you spot a fake Vietnam era Zippo i have 1 for the U.S special forces ,which i will take a pic and post many thanks 

To be honest... I do not know. And unless it is from a Vet, I am not sure anyone does. GIs probably took tens of thousands of the things over there during the war... I remember in Paris in the early 90s, I was on leave and they had Vietnam engtaved Zippos all over the place, in Surplas stores, in chique cloting stores.... all Vietnam era dated... I am assuming that if an unengraved Zippo is found inVietnam, it is engraved within the next 24 hours.... and reaslitically... is there any way of telling when it was engraved?

[RichardB]

On 13/07/2019 at 09:34, Chris Boonzaier said:

To be honest... I do not know. And unless it is from a Vet, I am not sure anyone does. GIs probably took tens of thousands of the things over there during the war... I remember in Paris in the early 90s, I was on leave and they had Vietnam engtaved Zippos all over the place, in Surplas stores, in chique cloting stores.... all Vietnam era dated... I am assuming that if an unengraved Zippo is found inVietnam, it is engraved within the next 24 hours.... and reaslitically... is there any way of telling when it was engraved?

Good point ,thanks for the reply ...

[OvBacon]

Here is mine 

[Gordon Craig]

Gentlemen,

Learned something new again today!  Didn't know that Zippo lighters were date marked.  Here is a link to a list of date codes etc that might prove useful.

https://www.zippo.com/pages/date-codes 

Regards,

Gordon

 

[OvBacon]

2 hours ago, Gordon Craig said:

Gentlemen,

Learned something new again today!  Didn't know that Zippo lighters were date marked.  Here is a link to a list of date codes etc that might prove useful.

https://www.zippo.com/pages/date-codes 

Regards,

Gordon

 

yup, thats why I showed the bottom of the zippo. It allows you to easily date the zippo and thus determine if it could have been from a specific time period (like the vietnam war). 

Edited April 12, 2020 by OvBacon

[OvBacon]

As Chris indicated above.... if you want to "fake" a specific war zippo you have to have one made in a specific year and then you can engrave it with whatever and so it can be hard to know if a zippo from the vietnam war was really from a soldier or not. 

[Graf]

That i call a decent lighter

[No one]

Dear Gentlemen,

 

French Navy :

 

- Bouvet :

 

 

- Doudart de Lagrée :

 

 

- Etoile Polaire :

 

 

-  Jules Verne :

 

 

- Kersaint :

 

 

- La Boudeuse :

 

 

 

- La Charente :

 

 

La Galissonnière :

 

 

- Victor Schœlcher :

 

 

- Vinh Long :

 

 

- F.M.F. Océan Indien : 

 

 

- French Air Force 3/10 "Vexin" (Djibouti) :

 

 

- SAGLE Service des achats groupés de la Légion étrangère :

 

 

Yours sincerely,

No one