Hundreds gather to show off vintage lighters

That's no Bic she's flicking.

In today's use-and-throw-away world, people routinely purchase disposable lighters in multipacks and don't recall the days when folks bought a cigarette lighter for life.

However, thousands of others, such as Judith Sanders, co-founder of the On the Lighter Side International Lighter Collector Club, are dedicated to preserving the vintage metal-plated refillable devices.

"They are part of our history -- and collecting them has nothing to do with promoting cigarette smoking," Sanders, a resident of Quitman, Texas, said. "I 'm a smoker, but 50 percent of the (900) members of my club do not smoke. This (hobby) is about appreciating the mechanics and the art."

Sanders is running the 12th Annual International Lighter Collector Convention through today at the Imperial Palace. The exhibit in the Strip resort's Royal Halls is free to the public from noon-4 p.m. today.

Thousands of lighters, some from as far back as the early 19th century and valued at greater than $5,000, will be on display at more than 100 booths. Some are for sale.

Lighter collecting is becoming a hot hobby. Last year, a convention in Pennsylvania drew 7,000 people. A trade show in Beijing drew 100,000.

There are two major American lighter-collecting clubs and more than a half-dozen in Europe. Sanders said collectors from as far away as Europe and Japan will be at the local convention to show off their little flame-makers.

Among the brand name lighters most popular with American collectors are Ronson, Scripto, Dunhill (a British company) and Zippo, which produces about 18 million lighters a year at its Bradford, Pa., plant.

As with most collectibles, Sanders said the two qualities that make a lighter rare and valuable are scarcity and condition.

To that point, Sanders said: "The Elsie the Cow Town and Country Zippo lighter -- with all of its paint and in mint condition -- sells for about $400. But with paint missing, it's worth about $75 to $100."

Among the rarest lighters in the world is the 1933 first-edition chrome Zippo worth about $7,000. A Dunhill table lighter with a watch in it recently sold at auction for $7,000.

Sanders said that the highest quality lighter collectibles are "mint in a box," meaning that they have never been lit and are in their original package.

However, many collectors are satisfied getting their hands on used lighters in excellent condition or even neat old ones that don't work but are reparable.

"People generally get started in this hobby by going to a flea market or into an antique store, where they see an unusual lighter and become hooked," Sanders, who has about 4,000 lighters in her collection, said.

Her favorite piece is a prototype of a Zippo lighter that was designed in the early 1980s by Zippo Vice President Bill Jones.

The polished chrome device with a flower pattern of bright orange on the side was never produced in quantity because Zippo officials considered it too wild during that era of great conservatism, Sanders said

To the public, Zippo may be the most recognizable lighter company name.

The company was founded 65 years ago and, after a decadelong lull attributable in part to the popularity of disposable lighters, boasted record sales of about $150 million last year.

Zippo inventor and company founder George Blaisdell started the practice of stamping a code on the bottom of each lighter to better maintain quality control. Unbeknown to him, it sparked a collectibles market for Zippos. But he died in 1978 before the hobby caught on.

To date, about 380 million Zippos have been produced. Each year, about 17,000 new designs come on the market. While vintage Zippos range in price from $50 to thousands of dollars, a new Zippo costs about $13.

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