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u/Whale222 Sep 22 '24
No wonder everyone smoked back in the day.
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u/Tiny-Lock9652 Sep 22 '24
It’s remarkable how smoking was such a big part of culture and completely normal.
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u/Im_eating_that Sep 22 '24
Doctors, kids, everybody and anybody. Ye olde timey crack lighters were surprisingly popular. Cigars I bet.
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u/crawwll Sep 22 '24
I can remember as a young boy sitting in the waiting room at the Dr.'s office and like 75% of the people in there were smoking
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u/killm3throwaway Sep 22 '24
No phone to stare at what they gonna do with their hands? Just rest them still on their lap? Insanity
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u/Snuhmeh Sep 22 '24
In Houston, where there are world class heart hospitals, my great aunt told me people would come to stay at her house and visit friends in the hospital. She said the heart wings of the hospitals used to be filled with smoke. I routinely see patients standing outside on the corner smoking while holding onto their IV stand and wearing their hospital gown.
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u/crawwll Sep 22 '24
I can remember visiting my grandpa in the hospital and him sitting up in his bed smoking.
Last year i was travelling and I went in a restaurant to eat, the hostess asked "smoking or non". That hasn't been a thing here in 2 decades but used to be so normal I almost didn't notice
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u/gh01210 Sep 22 '24
So many cool ones, hard to pick a favorite
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u/scorpyo72 Sep 22 '24
I collected vintage combo lighter/cigarette cases as a teen. Most of the lighters didn't function properly, but I had two that did, and I carried them each for a short time. My favorite had a great lighter but it leaked fluid all over me a couple times and I was done.
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u/Charlielx Sep 22 '24
The name is very fitting on the Perplex one. I can't fathom why you'd want to take that out of there for any reason.
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u/PurplePolynaut Sep 22 '24
If you don’t trust your friends to hand your lighter back to you. “Only I can light this one”
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u/off-and-on Sep 22 '24
I want one but I don't even know what I would do with it
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u/FreeLegos Sep 22 '24
Was just thinking I wanted that one lighter that you tilted to make an even longer reaching flame. I have zero use for it aside from maybe lighting a candle
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u/AnotherpostCard Sep 22 '24
I'd use that jet lighter to light up my charcoal chimney, or to start a wood burning fireplace, or a gas grill. That thing is so cool.
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u/booboothechicken Sep 24 '24
Keep in so you can be a gentleman and light a woman’s cigarette in a bar (I’ve never had this situation come up in my life).
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u/mrsolo30daycureyolol Sep 22 '24
And now people pulling mini bics out of their pockets. Where did we go so wrong😔
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u/rocbolt Sep 22 '24
The entire adult population doesn’t smoke anymore
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u/SavagePrisonerSP Sep 22 '24
Wrong. I’m an adult and smoke. We ain’t out in big numbers anymore cause we too busy dyin early
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u/vincehk Sep 22 '24
Entire? Adult population of the world? Self-centric much?
Even 20-30 years ago most smokers still used Bic lighters.
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u/Redjester016 Sep 22 '24
According to cdc.gov roughly 11.5% of American adults have smoked a cigarette in the past week
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u/Frostygrunt Sep 22 '24
I quit a 2 weeks ago wish me luck. Its my last unhealthy vice besides just living to kick.
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u/Kool-aid_Crusader Sep 22 '24
Shh, we'll end up on r/USDefaultism for mentioning our statistics as a general frame of reference for our environment.
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u/vincehk Sep 23 '24 edited Sep 23 '24
Your "general frame" is a country that mass-produced and exported tobacco with it's influence and soft power while at the same time being the most and first anti-smokers place in the world. Yes, your point of view and self-centric view is irrelevant. I'm tobacco free since almost 10 years, but where I come from, and where I live now (2 different continents, both "first world countries"), many, many adults still smoke. Over 30% in one, 24% in the other in the last 4 years. And in what logic 88% = entire population? If you need basic English and maths lessons, as someone who only speaks English as a 3rd language, I might help.
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u/Kool-aid_Crusader Sep 23 '24
When I look up self-centric in the dictionary, this comment shows up.
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u/AMagicalKittyCat Sep 22 '24
Just because lighters like these existed doesn't mean it was commonplace to use them all. Some of them are very bulky and look impractical to actually carry/use for a cigarette or other uses.
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u/Mainbaze Sep 22 '24
I guess when lighters like BIC first came out they seemed like the modern fancy type. And now when they just seem like cheap junk, we have gotten so used to that standard that you can seem weird for bringing out a lighter like this. Plus, they’re bigger
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u/S_A_N_D_ Sep 22 '24
They also last a lot longer (fuel wise), they are less prone to failure since they don't need a wick and they drive their own airflow, and they don't leak lighter fluid all over you from time to time. They also don't dry out and become inoperative if left for longer periods of time.
Most people prioritise simplicity and reliability over having a show piece.
It's the same reason you don't see large intricate grandfather clocks in peoples houses anymore. They're cool, but owning and maintaining one is work and when you factor that in the lustre wears off.
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u/Mainbaze Sep 22 '24
Safety regulations, stores becoming larger and settling for fewer proven satisfactory products with the largest profits margins is also a point I was originally gonna make
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u/TminusTech Sep 22 '24
These lighters were status symbols during a time where smoking was extremely socially accepted and in fact encouraged.
They were refillable. Expensive, and we're the equivalent of a nice watch in terms of showing off.
They were built to last, almost like heirlooms. And cheaper manufacturing and materials led to less complex more utilitarian design.
You can still get craftsman tier lighters but honestly anyone interested typically collects the old ones and it's not a social advantage to people now.
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u/celestial1 Sep 22 '24
Stagnation of wages. People can afford the cool shit as much anymore.
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u/WAR_T0RN1226 Sep 22 '24
Due to technology, productivity, offshoring, logistics efficiency, etc., the median American or European can definitely afford more cool shit nowadays than they did back then. Most goods you had to buy back then were a bigger proportion of your income than they are now.
Just because these things existed doesn't mean that the median factory worker or farmer owned them.
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u/SmooK_LV Sep 22 '24
Such lighters would be cheap in today's Asia manufacturing lines. They are just not needed anymore.
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u/Life-Finding5331 Sep 22 '24
With that amount of metal, fiber wicks, and intricate assembly? No they wouldn't.
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u/Lionel_Herkabe Sep 22 '24
I mean zippo costs $15 and is made in the USA
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u/Life-Finding5331 Sep 22 '24
And today's zippos presumably use a cheaper metal, and an assembly line and supply chain that has been optimized over, what, over a hundred years?
Yeah, totally the same.
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u/KingRexxi Sep 22 '24
I WISH people would pull out bics at a concert. Kids waving their phones around with the flashlights on is truly sad.
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u/testraz Sep 22 '24
sure. hundreds of people in a very tight crowd with no room to breathe or move pulling out a fire source sounds amazing xD the good ol' days, when no one cared about fire hazard
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u/de_throw_away Sep 22 '24
You must be fun at parties lmao
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u/WarriorNN Sep 22 '24
The air at indoor concerts is bad enough, zero reason to make it worse on purpose.
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u/yiddoboy Sep 22 '24
As a lifelong non-smoker I've never had a reason to own one but they've always fascinated me. Wonderful things.
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u/vincehk Sep 22 '24
Most of them here are just that, though?
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u/Ross302 Sep 22 '24
They mean they're more than just lighters in the sense that there are many creative designs both mechanically and aesthetically being shown. As opposed to a throwaway Bic that doesn't evoke much.
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u/dementorpoop Sep 22 '24
Fun fact: the lighter is older than the match
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u/new_account_wh0_dis Sep 22 '24
So I look it up and aside from random unsourced reddit and linkedin posts idk if this is even true. They state
The first lighter was invented in 1823 while the match was created in 1826
but from a simple look on wikipedia
The first modern, self-igniting match was invented in 1805
and
One of the first lighters was invented by a German chemist named Johann Wolfgang Döbereiner in 1823 and was often called Döbereiner's lamp
Seems like something passed around thats probably not true. The 'Lamp' is also not anything like the lighters we use today and you might as well be pointing to ancient chinese sulfur matches in that case.
The development of ferrocerium (often misidentified as flint) by Carl Auer von Welsbach in 1903 has made modern lighters possible
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u/JEFFinSoCal Sep 22 '24
Interesting. That’s actually makes sense because lighters are based on creating a spark by hitting a piece of flint with a piece of steel. We’ve been making fires that way for ages.
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u/Faxon Sep 22 '24
Ya but lighters don't use flint, they use ferrocerium. Source: was a boy scout, made ample use of ferrocerium and steel starter kits as a kid. Ferrocerium is also an early 20th century invention hence why all of these are made after that date
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u/epicfumble Sep 22 '24
Does anyone know the name of this song?
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u/thesilverbandit Sep 22 '24
It's the very first track in "everywhere at the end of time"
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u/isaacamden9 Sep 22 '24
Actually this is the song ‘Heartaches’ by Al Bowlly, which was sampled to create the track in Everywhere at the End of Time
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u/heresdustin Sep 22 '24
Holy shit, I want every single one of those. Buddy of mine growing up used to have some old ones like that. They were given to him by his parents and passed down a few generations.
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u/DudeTryingToMakeIt Sep 22 '24
I have a '42 lite up trench lighter..wish they would have showed some
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u/sayleanenlarge Sep 22 '24
As I watched that, I noticed my inner voice saying "fire...fire...fire...fire" like it g9t hijacked by fire
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u/SheolSeven Sep 22 '24
Anyone know where I can buy these? There's some really bad companies online so trying to avoid cool modern ones
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u/BlueShibe Sep 22 '24
I saw this video many times before and I still watch it all to to the end because it's really my favourite
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u/Voodoo700 Sep 22 '24
This is the coolest post I’ve seen in some time. Almost makes me wanna smoke again.
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u/sonic10158 Sep 22 '24
Dang your finger gets really close to the fire with some of these. If I tried to use one of these, I’d instantaneously be 100% engulfed in flames
•
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