A 1939 Elfa Lighter Found in a WWII Bunker — Brought Back to Life!

In this video, I restore a rare German lighter — Elfa-Columbus Nr. 53/11, manufactured in 1939 at the Elgersburger Feuerzeugfabrik in Elgersburg, Germany 🇩🇪.
This model was popular among Wehrmacht soldiers, and its smaller version — Elfa Sturmfeuerzeug — was used by almost every second soldier during WWII.

💡 The story of this find began with my long-time passion for metal detecting. One of my fellow explorers discovered this lighter inside an old gas mask canister while inspecting abandoned WWII bunkers. After decades buried in dust and rust, it finally got a chance to shine again.

When I first saw it, the lighter was completely rusted, jammed, and cracked. During the restoration process, I realized I didn’t want to make it perfect — to over-polish or remove too much metal. I wanted to preserve the traces of time, the marks that remind us that nothing lasts forever.

🏭 A bit of history:
The company Müller & Grünstein, which originally founded the Elfa lighter brand, was renamed Elgersburger Feuerzeugfabrik GmbH in 1936 during the Aryanization period. Later, in the GDR era, it became known as VEB Feuerzeugfabrik Elgersburg and continued production until the late 1980s.

🛠️ In this video, you’ll see the complete restoration process — from cleaning and rebuilding the body to final polishing and testing the mechanism.
If you have any information about whether Elfa lighters were officially supplied to the Wehrmacht, please share it in the comments!

🚀 I hope you enjoy my restoration of this beauty! Please rate my work from 1 to 10 in the comments — your opinion really matters to me!

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🔧 Support the project and help me get a lathe: https://ko-fi.com/reflame

Also, I recommend watching this video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRVxQbTFiik&list=PLkz1fMey8ywf18AuHTP8nA8lAT0-SdBNp

#restoration #asmr #lighter #vintage