Speaking of tax stamps. I’m pretty fascinated by them, especially on lighters. The oldest pieces in my collection have European tax stamps, in fact.
Two from my collection of rope/wick lighters are particularly old. Both have French 1911 brass stamps. That makes them antiques at more than 100 years old, but I digress …
In France during that time period, all lighters exported had tax stamps applied. This particular stamp with “1911” was used until about 1916 when the style was changed to more of a dog bone shape. I have some of those, which I’ll share in a future post.
One of these lighters is a traditional rope lighter, also called a sailor lighter. Sometimes they are referred to as “trench lighters” or “foxhole lighters” but I don’t think those names are appropriate for this style. (We can debate that later.) The lighter works by striking the flint like normal but the spark starts the wick smoldering. There is no true flame.
The other one has the rope mechanism but also a fuel reservoir as shown in one of the photos. So it can be used to smolder or to produce a flame.
I have a decent collection of rope lighters acquired from a friend in The Netherlands who bought them as part of a collection. The previous owner lived in a fishing village and my storytelling brain likes to think he traded for them with sailors coming into port. I have no proof of this but it entertains me to consider.
