George G. Blaisdell founded Zippo Manufacturing Company in 1932, and produced the first Zippo lighter in early 1933, being inspired by an Austrian cigarette lighter of similar design made by IMCO. It got its name because Blaisdell liked the sound of the word “zipper” and “zippo” sounded more modern. On March 3, 1936, a patent was granted for the Zippo lighter In 2012 Cowan’s Auctions put up a lot of 282 Vietnam War-era Zippo lighters featuring personalized and anonymous engravings chosen by U.S. soldiers, sailors, and airmen during deployment. The collection was compiled by American artist Bradford Edwards over several years in the 1990s, on-site in Vietnam. The collection sold for $35,250 on June 21, 2012. The following is an excerpt from the Cowan’s Auctions lot description: Edwards explains that he is fascinated with the lighters as windows into the minds and experiences of the men experiencing a certain place and time. As Vietnam has evolved into a more modern and open nation in the last 20 years, foreign tourists have driven a growing market in the mementos, leading to an explosion in fakes. Edwards proclaims there are no real Zippos in Vietnam now. James Fiorella, author of The Vietnam Zippo (Schiffer Publishing, 1998) and probably the only authority on the subject with an expertise equal to Edwards, agrees, and warns collectors that over 95% of Zippos being sold in the open-air markets of Ho Chi Minh City and Ebay alike are fakes. Zippo, the utilitarian tool carried by nearly all
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