George Grant Blaisdell

George Grant Blaisdell (born June 5, 1895 - † October 3, 1978 in Bradford , Pennsylvania ) was the founder of the Zippo company , which then developed, manufactured and sold the lighter of the same name.

Blaisdell bought the rights to the Austrian lighter "Hurricane" in 1932 and developed the "Zippo" from this template. With a few minor changes, the Zippo is still available today as it was developed by Blaisdell in 1932.

Childhood and youth

George Grant Blaisdell grew up in Bradford, Pennsylvania. His father Philo Blaisdell owned a drilling rig factory there. The young George realized very early that he would not “waste time” on the school desk and would rather work and earn money instead. He left school in the 5th grade and was sent by his parents to a military school for two years.

Work in the factory

Then he started as an apprentice in his father's factory. He liked the hard work and was very talented in technical matters. After completing his apprenticeship in manufacturing, he moved to the sales department, and at the age of 19, with the beginning of the First World War , he took over the management.

crisis

Six years later, in 1920, George sold the company and founded the Blaisdell Oil Company with his brother. But during the Great Depression, like many others, his company ran into economic difficulties and Blaisdell found himself compelled to look for other entrepreneurial activities.

The idea

On a summer night in 1932, Blaisdell met a smartly dressed gentleman on the terrace at Bradford Country Club, and he started talking. During the conversation, this gentleman lit a cigarette with an unsightly and clumsy lighter. Blaisdell asked, "Why don't you have a lighter that goes better with your suit?" The succinct answer was: "Because it works". This impressed Blaisdell so much that he successfully applied for the distribution rights for the lighter produced in Austria. He convinced the Austrian manufacturer to chrome-plate the cover of the very simply constructed lighter. But despite this measure, sales were disappointing and Blaisdell gave back the distribution rights. Now GG Blaisdell began to develop his own lighter. Here his mechanical skills, which he had acquired during his apprenticeship with his father, came in very handy. Blaisdell rented a workshop on the second floor of Rickerson & Pryde on Boylston Street for his project . The monthly rent was $ 10, a total of $ 800 for this new start. GG Blaisdell wanted to build a lighter that could be operated with one hand. He built a two-part, rectangular container. He connected the two parts with a three-part hinge, which he attached to the outside. The shape of this “phantom model” was angular, the floor flat and about six millimeters higher than the following models from 1933 onwards. Blaisdell constructed a new draft shield based on the Austrian model, whose patents he had secured. Shortly before Blaisdell designed his model, the Talon Company brought a zipper onto the market under the name "Zipper". Blaisdell liked the name so much that he called his product “Zippo” in the future.

Blaisdell charged 1.95 dollars for his first Zippos, but from an economic point of view he had chosen a very inconvenient time in the midst of the "Great Depression". In the first month he found 82 customers, and in the second month he was producing 367 Zippos. On May 17, 1934, Blaisdell filed his first patent in the United States Patent Office (Serial No. 726,022), which was granted on March 3, 1936. The patent number is 2032695 and was pressed onto the floor from the end of 1936. Until then, the only thing on the floor was: PAT. PENDING.

Lifetime guarantee

Blaisdell had such confidence in his product that this "Lifetime Guarantee" is still valid in the USA today. Due to legal restrictions, this guarantee is only valid for thirty years in Germany .

Web links

• Literature by and about George Grant Blaisdell in the catalog of the German National Library
• Biography for George Blaisdell (English)