Zippo lighters - how to distinguish an original from a fake: description and comparison

2024 Author: Priscilla Miln | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 00:21

Zippo lighters are a legend among all similar products. They represent many modifications that have been in production since 1933. At the moment, lighters are made from a wide variety of metals, such as titanium, pure copper, brass, silver, and even gold. Manufacturers give a long-term warranty on their products. All Zippo-branded lighters are expensive. However, the price is fully consistent with the quality and reliability.

Zippo products are uniquely different:

1. Special metal used in the manufacturing process.
2. Special processing for long life.
3. The pattern and design that covers the top layer of the lighter.

There are unique modifications with exterior trim made of leather, wood, sometimes there are instances with rubber inserts.

How to tell a Zippo genuine from a fake

Due to the huge popularityof these lighters, a large number of fakes have appeared that try to copy the design of famous products as much as possible. However, despite all efforts, the original is not so difficult to distinguish from a fake. It is not recommended to purchase a counterfeit product, as its quality can be very low.

In order to learn how to distinguish the original Zippo from a fake, you need to understand what features the products of this company have.

The real Zippo lighter has a patented design. It has been proving its effectiveness for decades. Manufacturers of counterfeit lighters often don't go to great lengths to produce a genuine quality product. The subtleties of respecting the proportions of each detail are often ignored. This causes breakage after a short use.

Genuine Zippos are made from high quality metal, while fakes are made from low grade materials.

Appearance and lifetime warranty

The company develops unique designs for its own modifications, all drawings and patterns are thought out in production, all lines are done neatly and gracefully. This is one of the reasons why these lighters are worth the price for real collectors. Fakes often differ in sloppy drawings.

Lifetime warranty on all items is one of the main advantages of Zippo products. Any original lighter can be sent to a free service center, regardless of its age. Professionals will fix or replacebroken parts. Obviously fakes have no guarantees.

Corpus evaluation

In order to distinguish the original Zippo from a fake, you need to conduct a small test, which includes 10 stages of verification.

1 stage: you should evaluate the product for its appearance and weight. The original Zippo lighter immediately demonstrates a sign of quality: it is moderately heavy and smooth (or, conversely, a little rough), fits comfortably in the hand.

2 step: check the body. First you need to evaluate the material from which the lighter is made. Cast specimens made of tin or obscure metals are certainly not the original. In real Zippos, the materials are of high quality and easily recognizable. After that, you should focus your attention on the image, see if all the overlays are neatly made. If the lighter has printed text, you need to check the spelling. There will be no errors on the original, and as for fakes, there may be inaccuracies, typos.

Studying the Stamp

3 step: look at the bottom. On real Zippos, there is a stamp confirming the originality on the bottom. It can be used to determine the date of manufacture of the lighter and to distinguish the original Zippo from a fake. Fake copies may not have such a stamp, or it may not be the same as real ones.

Absolutely every element matters, you need to look at the logo, at the spaces between the letters in the inscription and even at the punctuation marks (following the wordBradford will be a comma, and after PA - immediately a period). You also need to look at the left side of the logo. There is a letter there that should be comparable to the month the lighter was made. Limits - A to L.

The presence of other letters on the stamp (W or Y) may indicate a fake. And the number on the right side of the logo must be Arabic and comparable to the year of manufacture, so there cannot be numbers such as 25, 28 or 100. It is worth noting that on lighters released a long time ago, the seals are different from modern ones.

You should also pay attention that the date on the bottom is a stamp, not an engraving. Neat, clear, even in depth. Irregularities are excluded.

Checking details

4 stage: you need to open the lighter. Flipping the lid off the original Zippo is accompanied by a recognizable click. The Zippo click sound is even patented, as it is unique due to the design features, which also helps to identify the original.

5 stage: you need to look at the details of the lighter. Every detail of Zippo products is made with high quality. Pay attention to the various fastenings, joints. All parts must be carefully processed, do not stick out, do not scratch. In general, fakes are quite easy to recognize by the unreliable hinges that connect the case to the lid.

Internal inscriptions

6 stage: you need to get the insert. It is not difficult to take it out, but it should not fall out. There are inscriptions inside the lighter, which, like the stamp on the bottom, confirm the originality. They arehave also changed over the years.

7 stage: at the bottom of the insert you need to see a specific gasket with the Lift to fill emblem and a tiny screw. Its appearance may be different, it all depends on the year of manufacture. To check a Zippo lighter and recognize a fake, you need to examine the screw - it is unique. It has special end notches, which are made according to English inch thread techniques. This will definitely not happen on fakes, because they use Chinese metric cutting technology.

Important details

8 step: The windshield should have eight symmetrical holes, and the windshield itself should be oval. On a fake, there may be a different number of holes, or they are not even, unevenly located. The casing can also have a different shape.

9 stage: the wheel-chair should have notches that are crossed at a 30-degree angle. Counterfeits often have straight notches.

10 step: you need to study the wick, which must be made of polymeric materials and contain an interwoven metal thread.

After such a comparison of the original Zippo and the fake, you can safely declare the authenticity of the lighter or its falsification.

Quality plastic or wooden box

Product packaging also plays a big role. To distinguish an original Zippo from a fake, you should pay attention to what the lighter is in. Branded products are sold exclusively in high-quality plastic, cardboard or boxes made of wooden materials. In the center -neat packaging with original logo and barcode. Each wrapper contains complete and detailed information about all the possibilities of using the original product.

Fakes are packed in ordinary, low-quality conveyor-made boxes. The weight of the original product, including packaging, is more than you would expect from such a small item. Using all known information about this product, you can easily distinguish any fake from the real version.

How much does a Zippo original cost? From 3000 rubles. Remember that a real branded item will never be sold for "penny" in some obscure online stores or in stalls near the house.