by Sara.Katrina

Everything started on one summer evening in 1932, during a dinner dance held at the Bradford Country Club, on a hill by the outskirts of Bradford, Pennsylvania. Participating in the dance was George G. Blaisdell, who afterward started to be known as “Mr. Zippo.” Blaisdell was one of individuals seeking for a new way to make money.

So far, he had yet to bump into anything promising. Blaisdell, who has been growing tired of the dance and idle talk of politics, went out onto the terrace to enjoy a smoke. There, he saw an acquaintance of his looking to light up a cigarette, acquiring of his pocket an unsightly brass lighter which had been patently tawdry. The unappealing lighter was wholly out of place in the hand of this perfectly attired gentleman. The sight of the person attempting clumsily to open the lighter’s lid was so comical that Blaisdell practically began to laugh.

“You’re all dressed up. Why not acquire a lighter that looks decent?” blurted Blaisdell. His friend must have thought it was none of Blaisdell business. “It really works!” he expressed, defensively. Those two words, “It does the job!”, whirled in George Blaisdell’s head that night. In these times, everyone has to be trying to find an item which is low-priced, yet tough and durable, he thought. No, that isn’t so; those things are invariably in demand, not only in bad times. This lighter business is ensuring!

Blaisdell instantly obtained the sole U.S. rights from the Austrian lighter manufacturer. To boost its appearance, Blaisdell chrome-plated the lid for the lighter and raised the purchase price to a single dollar. He couldn’t sell any, he learned that there was flaws with the lighter. Blaisdell was determined to create a whole new lighter that would not fail easily to light.

Walking away from the flawed Austrian lighter, Blaisdell rented a corner of the second floor of the Rickerson & Pryde, Inc. building on Boylston Street. Blaisdell paid up every month in rent, hired three people, and began to develop completely new lighter. He with his fantastic team used a strong electrical hot plate for soldering. Everything from the punch press to the welder was second-hand equipment. The total expense of his machines was 0 then. First thing Blaisdell did was to make the lighter smaller sized in order to fit in the palm from your hand, and he designed a hinge to keep the lid to the bottom, making it an integral part of the lighter. This made possible the user to open the lighter using only one hand. Blaisdell then installed a wind hood surrounding the wick, he applied the hood structure of this Austrian lighter and named the revolutionary product “Zippo”.

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