1929 CYKLON (Made in Austria) This is the lighter that started it all. Introduced to George Blaisdell at a party in Bradford PA. The young Blaisdell saw a young man fumbling with a lighter and commented on it's clumbsy way, which caused the man to retort "it works". This simple sentence made Blaisdell start his career making lighters "that work". This lighter was actually Imported by Blaisdell, and sold in 1932 in form fitting Zippo boxes, Mr Blaisdell was impressed with it's wind proof and solid construction. In 1932 he began improving on it. The first improvment was mounting the flint wheel to the windscreen instead of the plate. This made it much stronger and easyer to assemble. You wonder why he did not change the hole pattern in the wind screen, He must have thought it was one of the best features. Adding the hinge, cam and other improvements making what we now know as the zippo.