Preface: Yes, I smoke. Yes, I know it's bad. Yes, I enjoy it. This past Friday I went to a large local flea market and picked up this Dunhill Silent Flame Table Lighter Combination, made in the 1930s, for $5. The lady selling it said she had tried to get it working but she never could and she was tired of looking at it. The more common ones, made by Dunhill and later Parker, easily found are the ones with little statuettes on them - one has a sail boat, another has a dog, another a plane, another a winged naked lady... This Table Lighter Combination featuring the lighter and a cigarette box, is quite rare. Even more so considering that none of the bake light is broken or chipped or cracked and even the green paint in the middle of the lid handle is all present. So I brought it home and did all of the initial stuff to get it going: new C size batteries, lighter fluid in the wand. It would not work. I finally got around to disassembling it today and cleaning all of the metal contact strips, bending them back out to make sure they were making contact with the batteries, etc. Lo and behold, it works now! Here's a video I just made, showing it in action:
