Contempo Zippo Lighters

About a year back, we started out with some fellow collectors to find out more about these rare gas lighters made by Zippo. These were the very first gas lighter ever been made by Zippo and were manufactured in Japan. Production was stopped after a few years already since they were to expensive to make and to repair. As usual Zippo garanteed lifetime warranty. These Zippo lighters are believed to be manufactured from 1985 till 1989.

Below you will find some of the Contempo lighters we have in our collection and more information on them. We are ofcourse looking to find all of them, so in case you have some pieces Mint In Box we don't have, and willing to sell or trade, feel free to let us know. Any additional information on these is ofcourse welcome.

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Trim Burgundy Model nr : 1414	Trim Bright Chrome Model nr : 1401	Standard Louver Chrome Model nr : 703	Standard Burgundy Model nr : 714	Trim Burgundy Model nr : 1414

Standard Burgundy Model nr : 714 Kendall Adv.	Trim Burgundy Model nr : 1414 Kendall Adv.	The outer box	Trim Basic Black Model nr : 1415 Kendall Adv
		Comming Soon
Standard Louver Gold Model nr : 711	Trim Louver Gold Model nr : 1411	Trim Louver Chrome Model nr : 1403	Trim Basic Black Model nr : 1415	Standard Basic Black Model nr : 715

Standard Tortoise Model nr : 716	Trim Tortoise Model nr : 1416	Standard Tortoise Model nr : 716	Trim Gold Mesh Model nr : 1412

The original paperwork, included with each Contempo lighter, thanks Andy for the scan

Below you will find a scan from the first page from the Zippo catalogue (cf -89) from 1989 with all different models offered for this Contempo lighter. 18 different models are shown in the catalogue. It is still doubtfull that only 18 models were offered since there has been found a Contempo pipelighter by a Dutch collector also (please see below for more information).

Andy, a German Zippo collector found the original Patent for this lighter. Thank you very much Andy for this info. Be sure to visit Andy his homepage on zippos also : http://www.zippo-windproof-lighter.de/

Now there still remains the matter of the pipe lighter. Paul Van Wijk, a Zippo Collector from the Netherlands has had this pipe lighter in his collection for many years. Please visit his website on : http://home.wanadoo.nl/myzippos/
While in the catalogue Model nr 701 : Standard Bright Chrome is not mentioned as a pipe lighter, Paul his Contempo is Model nr 701 : P.L. Bright Chrome. Where the P.L. stands for Pipe Lighter. Please see Paul his pictures below. So maybe there is still the possibility that each Contempo lighter was offered also as a pipe lighter (Zippo does that also on their petrol models). That would bring the models upto 36 different ones. Remains a mystery ... to be continued hopefully.

And a second pipe lighter was found. This time the finish is Louver gold and a again a standard finish

Some pictures of the original display case that was given to shops to sell the Contempo zippos in.

Many thanks go out to all our fellow collectors who helped on this.