1946-49 Zippo with a rose was engraved by Jack Clark, Zippo's first art director for his wife Rose Clark.

1949-50 Zippo testing  model with the head of a sniffing (?) woman, a bowler on one side, "Don" and a dog on the reverse.

1976 Zippo with a 1960's Sports Series hunter with dog design on one side and an earlier line-drawn shooter design and "Ruby Abbott" on the reverse.

1947 Zippo for "Bob" or Bob Holsinger, a foreman at Zippo Manufacturing Company.

1976 Zippo by Zippo employees dedicated to "Bob", or Bob Holsinger, foreman at Zippo Manufacturing Co. from  "The Nicest Boss From Your Girls 12/25/77".

1958 Zippo with very unusual engraving of Stork with a baby for  Jeffrey Wm. Holsinger, 9 lbs. 3 oz. 20" long, 5:21 p.m. Oct. 6, 1958., presumably the son of Bob Holsinger, Zippo foreman.

1995 Zippo test model with fisherman with jumping trout on one side, a deer head on the other.

1964 slim Zippo using a photographic element, or pixel, for a life like image of a man.

1971 Zippo with a pixel image of a couple by Paul Hajdu, a Zippo employee.

This 1946 Zippo is engraved with a golden winged wheel, a kneeling nude woman drinking by a wheat stalk, and the name "George Schaming", a Zippo employees, on one side, and a blonde with red lips and "Mary Lou" on the other.

1948-49 employee engraved Zippo with the designs of a rose, what looks like a woman tomato and a donkey from behind and "Gen" on one side, a woman's legs in hose and a hunter on the other. 

Test Models & Zippo Employee Art

After World War II,  Zippo Manufacturing Company grew rapidly as  Zippo Lighter became popular item for advertising, promotions, commemoratives and, or course, for being a practical and reliable article for lighting cigarettes.  Designs became more sophisticated as new line drawn, leather covered, Town & Country and other models were introduced.  In the late 1940's and 1950's, engraving and decorating of Zippos involved much manual labor, with the Company employing many hundreds of artists and craftsmen to engrave and decorate the blank Zippo canvases.  Most of the lighters on this page have been used by Zippo employees for practicing their art,  testing, experimenting and sometimes just having fun.