A while back I was looking for a nice lighter for my pipes. There’s a rabbit hole you can go deep into! It’s amazing how much money a person can spend on a lighter. Eventually I picked up two of them. One is a silver plated ST DuPont Ligne 1, French made and really nice. The other is a gold plated Dunhill Rollagas, also quite nice. Good examples of these used vintage lighters can go for as much as several hundred dollars each. I got both pretty cheap, since both were supposedly non-working. The DuPont just needed some cleaning and it seemed to work fine. The Dunhill needed a complete rebuild of the gas valve and seals, but the rebuild kits are not expensive and it was a couple hours of fairly interesting and enjoyable work. It works fine now also.
Both, however, were finicky and difficult to light. I was using standard Zippo or Ronson flints, and it took enough work to get them to light that I eventually set them both aside and bought an inexpensive butane pipe lighter with piezo ignition. It works, it’s just not fancy. The other day I decided to either fix the two nice ones or sell them – or maybe both.
I ordered a package of genuine Dunhill flints for the Rollagas. Both it and the DuPont take a 3 mm diameter, fairly soft flint. The Zippo flints used by nearly all lighters are 2.5 mm and made of a pretty hard compound. I figured I’d spend the few dollars required to get the correct flints and see if that fixed the ignition issues. Well… yes. Yes, it did, and quite nicely. Both lighters now light perfectly on the first try, every single time. The new flints produce an impressive amount of spark that lights the gas instantly. I have both lighters equipped with “pipe flame” nozzles, meaning the flame goes sideways instead of straight up to make it easier to light a pipe or cigar than a standard cigarette flame.
Yes, the flints were $15 for a package of 9, instead of a couple bucks for a hundred or two – which would be more than I’d use in a lifetime, even if I were a heavy smoker. These will likely last me years anyway, and if I decide to sell either or both lighters I can now say with confidence that they are completely working as they should. I like the DuPont a little better from the standpoint of looks, feel, and style, but the Dunhill’s slimmer profile makes it a bit easier to use. The Dunhill is a bit more worn, though, with the gold plating quite thin in spots. Regardless, they’re both working well enough now that I’ll start using them again.