Posted 14 years ago
artist123p…
(1 item)
Seeking information on OWIN cigar/cigarette lighter(?). It is made of machined brass, 2 1/2 inches tall and 1" in diameter. It has the words OWIN and PATFNTFD on the bottom. Note the letter "F" is used instead of the letter "E" ln the word PATENTED. Thank you artist123purple.
Hello,
I search with a metaldetector. And yesterday i found such a lighter in a canteencup of world war two. I have searched with the detector on a ground that was be used by US soldiers from 1945-1946 befor they ware shipped to the US again. The text on it is English.We don't speak english in Belgium so I'm pretty sure that it has made in the US.
I hope i could help you. If you already know some more things about it... you can let me know.
I have one also that looks exactly like yours. It was given to me by my father-in-law and belonged to his dad during WWII. That's all I know about it so far.
It was said by my grand father , who brought one of these back from Germany that U.S soldiers would find these occasionally on a trail and and think that they were lighters but to there dismay, when stricking....I.E. rolling the strick....that it would flash hard with gun powder there by injuring the user and some times blinding them if held close to the face as in trying to light a cig.
These were designed to look like lighters but actually germans purchased from an old man who took large brass ammo and carefully opened them up and fashioned them into a lighter.
They would be refilled with ammo powder and the stricker wheel would send a spark into a catsh tube which directed into its casing to ignight the powder.
Very Dangerous! I hope yours doesnt have powder in it still.
hi i have one of these its got some sort of hard grey substance around where you would light it, would this be somthing to do with the gun powder theory? also do you know if these hold any value or ar they worthless?