VonMagnum
Sr Member
Ronson Rhodium Queen Anne Table Lighter (Left)(1950) and Ronson Rhodium Crown Table Lighter (Right)(1949)
I picked these two up from Ronson Repair for $75 each. The later (49/50) models are usually worth around $40-50 in good condition and you can generally get them on eBay in lesser condition for $15-25 because they're among the most common Ronson table lighter models ever made. They might be $100 New In Box, although NIB is exceedingly rare (I actually have a 1936 original NIB Crown shown on some earlier page I think I got for considerably less).
While NIB is rare because who buys a lighter and doesn't open/use it, these are very rare for another reason entirely, the Rhodium plating used on them, which are actually pretty hard to find, although occasionally someone will sell one without knowing they're worth more, but it's also possible they wore the plating off like any other item that can get wear/tear over 74+ years. There are some gold plated versions as well, but most of I've seen have the plating coming off of them so I wonder how thick the gold plating was (I have a couple of "heavy" gold plated Ronson lighters, namely the Savoy and the Aston prototype and they seem to hold up very well. You can feel the weight difference between a Savoy and a Decanter, despite being a very similar shape).
Anyway, prior to this, the only Rhodium plated lighters I have are a couple of the newer style mechanical pencil lighters Ronson made, which were all either Rhodium or Gold Filled sets to hold up against tarnish coming into contact with your hand all the time (even Sterling Silver jewelry tarnishes, just not as fast as the cheaper stuff, but it's accelerated by body oils, etc. A sterling silver lighter might takes years or even decades to tarnish under decent to great storage conditions if it's not handled constantly, but the more contact with your hands, the faster it's going to deteriorate from what I've read (I've only seen regular silver plating tarnish in 4 years here and only some of them are medium shades darker).
Rhodium, being similar in elemental composition to Platinum, is highly tarnish resistant without any plastic coatings like they put on some of their silver plated lighters to keep oxygen off the surface. I had a chemical reaction platinum based lighter on a previous page here that was around 90 years old and never opened. It had enough tarnish (not really visible) to keep the chemical reaction with methanol from happening, but exposing the platinum on it to a flame for a few seconds cleared it right off and it works fine now. Dunhill has made Palladium plated lighters (also in the Platinum group). These are the only three I'm aware of used in lighters (the last three in the groups include Iridium, Ruthenium and Osmium). Somehow, I doubt it'd be cost effective today to use Rhodium plating as all these elements are extremely rare and therefore costly. Dunhill Palladium lighters certainly sold for a high sum, although solid Gold lighters are the most expensive as they're 14k-18k solid gold, not just a plating layer).
Anyhow, as you can see, the plating is in excellent shape for the most part (little rough on the top of the snuffer on one). Since they're from Ronson Repair, they're already fully functional and restored, if any was needed (not certain if that's the original felt on the bottom or not). I watched his video of them working (sparking fine out of the box), but I'm getting low on Ronsonol and for some stupid reason forgot to buy another bottle when I was at Walgreens this evening so I didn't light them (looks the same as previous models in that regard) as it'd probably use up what's left in the bottle in the background (table lighters use a LOT of lighter fluid compared to pocket lighters, but might go months before needing refilled. I had one light up 7 months later, in fact (when I clicked it to see if it had a flint when I was removing them, it lit right up, which is a long time for a wick lighter to last due to evaporation on wick models (although leaking gas lighters are far worse).
No, these aren't the "rare" lighter I referred to in a post above. It's on its way still.
Click for larger view/slideshow (these are higher resolution than most of my pictures posted so you can read the bottom):
I picked these two up from Ronson Repair for $75 each. The later (49/50) models are usually worth around $40-50 in good condition and you can generally get them on eBay in lesser condition for $15-25 because they're among the most common Ronson table lighter models ever made. They might be $100 New In Box, although NIB is exceedingly rare (I actually have a 1936 original NIB Crown shown on some earlier page I think I got for considerably less).
While NIB is rare because who buys a lighter and doesn't open/use it, these are very rare for another reason entirely, the Rhodium plating used on them, which are actually pretty hard to find, although occasionally someone will sell one without knowing they're worth more, but it's also possible they wore the plating off like any other item that can get wear/tear over 74+ years. There are some gold plated versions as well, but most of I've seen have the plating coming off of them so I wonder how thick the gold plating was (I have a couple of "heavy" gold plated Ronson lighters, namely the Savoy and the Aston prototype and they seem to hold up very well. You can feel the weight difference between a Savoy and a Decanter, despite being a very similar shape).
Anyway, prior to this, the only Rhodium plated lighters I have are a couple of the newer style mechanical pencil lighters Ronson made, which were all either Rhodium or Gold Filled sets to hold up against tarnish coming into contact with your hand all the time (even Sterling Silver jewelry tarnishes, just not as fast as the cheaper stuff, but it's accelerated by body oils, etc. A sterling silver lighter might takes years or even decades to tarnish under decent to great storage conditions if it's not handled constantly, but the more contact with your hands, the faster it's going to deteriorate from what I've read (I've only seen regular silver plating tarnish in 4 years here and only some of them are medium shades darker).
Rhodium, being similar in elemental composition to Platinum, is highly tarnish resistant without any plastic coatings like they put on some of their silver plated lighters to keep oxygen off the surface. I had a chemical reaction platinum based lighter on a previous page here that was around 90 years old and never opened. It had enough tarnish (not really visible) to keep the chemical reaction with methanol from happening, but exposing the platinum on it to a flame for a few seconds cleared it right off and it works fine now. Dunhill has made Palladium plated lighters (also in the Platinum group). These are the only three I'm aware of used in lighters (the last three in the groups include Iridium, Ruthenium and Osmium). Somehow, I doubt it'd be cost effective today to use Rhodium plating as all these elements are extremely rare and therefore costly. Dunhill Palladium lighters certainly sold for a high sum, although solid Gold lighters are the most expensive as they're 14k-18k solid gold, not just a plating layer).
Anyhow, as you can see, the plating is in excellent shape for the most part (little rough on the top of the snuffer on one). Since they're from Ronson Repair, they're already fully functional and restored, if any was needed (not certain if that's the original felt on the bottom or not). I watched his video of them working (sparking fine out of the box), but I'm getting low on Ronsonol and for some stupid reason forgot to buy another bottle when I was at Walgreens this evening so I didn't light them (looks the same as previous models in that regard) as it'd probably use up what's left in the bottle in the background (table lighters use a LOT of lighter fluid compared to pocket lighters, but might go months before needing refilled. I had one light up 7 months later, in fact (when I clicked it to see if it had a flint when I was removing them, it lit right up, which is a long time for a wick lighter to last due to evaporation on wick models (although leaking gas lighters are far worse).
No, these aren't the "rare" lighter I referred to in a post above. It's on its way still.
Click for larger view/slideshow (these are higher resolution than most of my pictures posted so you can read the bottom):
