When the U.S. went to war in 1942 chrome and copper became
obsolete for non-militairy uses. To overcome this zippo started producing
their lighters from a low grade steel. Because the lighters didn’t have
a nice appearance and could easily rust zippo decided to have them painted
with a crackle paint. The painting was done by a factory contracted by
zippo. Though they first experimented with red and beige crackle paints
they eventually chose to paint the outer cases black. Unfortunately the
red and beige prototypes were lost during the war which makes them the
dream of every collector.
The first wartime inserts were made from sheets of zinc
and had three spotwelds on the cam side. The cam was made from pressed
steel and had a typically distorted shape.
Black crackle zippo’s were produced only for army personnel
fighting the war overseas and none were available for people in the U.S.
Zippo placed advertisements in magazines warning people to take good care of their zippo’s because replacements were not available.
1943
Zippo returned to the three barrel hinge which they hadn’t
produced from 1935 on. Because the bottomstamp of the lighters were covered
with a thick layer of black crackle paint the inserts were also stamped.
A 1943 zippo can easily be distinguished from a 1942 type by looking at
the hinge and insert.
The 1943 model insert had two spotwelds on the camside
and the camside was made a little lower than a 1942 model. Also on the
1942 insert the markings are missing.
During the war soldiers personalised their zippo's which is called trench-art. They soldered on emblems, coins or bullets and scratched names and places in the black crackle paint. In Europe soldiers cut the chimney of their zippo's so they could light them with their winter gloves on. Though many collectors are looking for mint or near mint zippo's some specialize in collecting trench-art zippo's from the different wars. Some care has to be taken here because there are a lot of fake trench-art zippo's out there. Most are vietnam "zippo's" that are made in the orient and sold as originals.
1946
Due to the shortages of chrome and brass after the war zippo produced their lighters from unchromed nickel-silver. The inserts looked pretty much the same as the 1943 models but were more rounded on the flintwheel side. The cases had a canned bottom and rounded top like the ones zippo now produces but the lower outer case was made 1/32 of an inch taller. Because the rounded top had a bulge in the middle people nicknamed this zippo "rocket top". The hinge was spotwelded to the case with four spotwelds instead of the two used on earlier and later models and I've even seen some with 5 spotwelds. I’m not sure why this is but I guess nickel-silver was harder to weld.
Halfway through 1946 George Blaisdell stopped the production of zippo lighters because he wasn’t satisfied with the quality of the flntwheels that were bought from a different company up to then. Because of this 1946 lighters are very collectible and getting hard to find.
It took a team of metallurgists a couple of months to
develop a new and improved flintwheel which would be produced by zippo
itself. This flintwheel is still used in todays zippo’s and is considered
the best flintwheel on this earth.