MATCH CAN BE LIGHTED 100 TIMES (Jan, 1933)
Filed under: General — @ 12:54 am
Source: Popular Science ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Jan, 1933
| Buy on Ebay
Source: Popular Science ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Jan, 1933
| Buy on Ebay
Does anyone know how this works or what the match was made of?
Update: A reader sent in this possibility: an “Ignitable Stick” from the Google patent database. Thanks!
MATCH CAN BE LIGHTED 100 TIMES
If you borrow a match from the gentleman pictured at the right, he is likely to want it back! He is one of the users of a new repeating match recently produced in England. The match may be struck and relighted more than a hundred times. A small box, coated with a special composition used as the striking surface, serves as a holder for the repeating match when it is not in use. The device is much thicker than an ordinary parlor match and gives a correspondingly larger flame
It sounds like a liquid fueled cigerette lighter.
Putting the match back in its case extingueshes it.
Comment by jayessell — May 30, 2007 @ 3:52 am
jayessell: I think you’re right.
The first Zippo was produced in 1933, inspired by a similar Austrian invention (according to Wikipedia), so this could very well just be a cylinder w/ wick inside and an outer coating of flint, and was possibly the inspiration for Zippos…
These article scans are fascinating, keep it up!
Comment by Village Idiot — May 30, 2007 @ 6:23 am
a friend of mine once had a device like a small metal matchbox or more like a really tiny hip flask, you unscrewed the match and pulled it out. It was a small metal rod with a bursh head of metal fibres around a smaller metal core. Inside the box was a sponge (or possibly cotton) soaked in lighter fuel like the inside of a zippo). The striking surface was an inlaid black strip along one side, looked like slate but could have been metal. You strike it, sparks ignite the fuel on the matchead and BAM! you have fire. I’ve no idea how long it lasted but it was well worn down by the time I saw it.
Comment by vmos — May 30, 2007 @ 6:31 am
a friend of mine once had a device like a small metal matchbox or more like a really tiny hip flask, you unscrewed the match and pulled it out. It was a small metal rod (about the same size as the one in the picture) with a brush head of metal fibres around a smaller metal core. Inside the box was a sponge (or possibly cotton) soaked in lighter fuel like the inside of a zippo). The striking surface was an inlaid black strip along one side, looked like slate but could have been metal. You strike it, sparks ignite the fuel on the matchead and BAM! you have fire. I’ve no idea how long it lasted but it was well worn down by the time I saw it.
Comment by vmos — May 30, 2007 @ 6:54 am
don’t know if this is what it was… my dad used to have a “perpetual match”. it was a steel tube about 1/8 in. diameter with a wick inside. the matchbox had a strip of flint on it.
Comment by drauh — May 30, 2007 @ 7:37 am
Repeating matches, a lost wonder of 1933…
In January, 1933, Popular Science reported on a “repeating match” that could be lighted up to 100 times. Like the secrets of the pyramids and the the ancient technique for finding happiness while scrubbing in a field for root vegetables, the details …
Trackback by Boing Boing — May 30, 2007 @ 8:39 am
[...] Repeating matches, a lost wonder of 1933 In January, 1933, Popular Science reported on a “repeating match” that could be lighted up to 100 times. Like the secrets of the pyramids and the the ancient technique for finding happiness while scrubbing in a field for root vegetables, the details of this technology have been lost to the mists of time. If you borrow a match from the gentleman pictured at the right, he is likely to want it back! He is one of the users of a new repeating match recently produced in England. The match may be struck and relighted more than a hundred times. A small box, coated with a special composition used as the striking surface, serves as a holder for the repeating match when it is not in use. The device is much thicker than an ordinary parlor match and gives a correspondingly larger flame. Link [...]
Pingback by Boing Boing: Repeating matches, a lost wonder of 1933 — May 31, 2007 @ 5:31 am
[...] invento este que se anunció en algunas revistas como Popular Science en 1933: una cerilla que se podÃa encender hasta cien veces. No está muy claro por qué cayó en el olvido, ni si serÃa muy útil hoy en dÃa: en muchas [...]
Pingback by Avances en formas de hacer fuego: la cerilla que se podÃa encender cien veces by Jubeo News — May 31, 2007 @ 5:25 pm
[...] no les vendría bien este invento a los del concurso supervivientes. [...]
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Pingback by FatsLeroy.com : MATCH CAN BE LIGHTED 100 TIMES — June 3, 2007 @ 2:23 pm
I owned one of those (still for sale) “lighter fuel” matches. They light about 1 in 10 tries, since it relies on the old “hard metal against flint” to create the spark, except unlike a Bic disposable lighter, this is about as fun to do by hand as making a camp fire by “quickly rubbing two sticks together.”
Comment by NikFromNYC — January 14, 2008 @ 3:52 pm