IMCO Manufacturing Corp.

Mascot & Solo pocket lighters

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The "Mascot" and "Solo" are both IMCO pocket lighters based on Julius Kohn's 1939 U.S. utility patent and manufactured in New York. Though patented and produced in the U.S., the general design and function of these lighter are Austrian in origin. Both lighters use full automatic side-press mechanisms popularized in the U.S. by Kaufmann-Balek. Like KB's Regens lighter, the IMCO Solo features a removable fuel tank for pipe smokers. A lesser-known variation of the same design, the IMCO Mascot has a forward-sliding fuel tank illustrated on page 2 of Kohn's U.S. patent drawing -- a feature designed in 1935 and patented in Austria by Karl Bernhardt. (EB)