Antique Pipe Lighters (Smoker's Braziers)

 

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      Before friction matches were invented, embers from the fireplace or stove often were used to light  pipes, cigars, and cigarettes. Hot embers are difficult to hold in tongs and not something you want accidentally dropped on your  table, floor, or lap, so smokers devised shallow bowls to hold the embers, bowls designed to be passed safely (coolly) from one person to another or placed on the table without burning it.  They called this device a  "pipe lighter" or  "smoker's brazier" in English, "Komfoor" (pijpencomfoor) in Dutch, "kohlenbecker" in German, "chofeta" and "brasero" (braserillo) in Spanish, "couvet" (couvon) in French, and "glodeskal" (glodefade) in Danish.  (Readers can  help by supplying other names for these devices.)  The following photo shows some one-handled ones in my collection.

  In the United States, I have found that hardly anyone, prominent antique dealers and museum  curators included, correctly identifies these devices.  Because expert help was so hard to find, it took me 10 years to identify my first one.  When I first began publicizing  them about eight years ago, I had seen only six examples and had been able to buy only four.  After receiving much-appreciated publicity from Maine Antique Digest, followed by two years of distributing a simple little booklet I had written (no longer available), so many people have written, sending photos of ones they own and copies of pages from rare publications, that I have now seen  approximately 250 examples,  including more than 50 in my own collection and more than 20 others that I have closely examined.   The most fun part of this activity has been helping people identify and appreciate this little-known form. It's been so much fun that I've turned to the wide reach of the Internet to make it even more so.  If you have a pipe lighter, e-mail me.  We'll exchange information about it, and if it needs a new wooden handle, I may be able to help, since I am learning to make these things.  I plan to update this site frequently with new information you readers provide.  Because pipe lighters were made in so many different places by so many different people, most of them trying to be creative or at least "different," there is much interesting variety within this form.  In the following pages, I will describe some of the ones I have seen and show more photos of my collection.  Go back to the top of this page to choose additional links.
 

Robert L. Downing
E-mail: bobpat@carol.net