Hello Zippocollector,

My name is Gerard Kluivingh. I was born in Vries, a small village in the Provence Drenthe in the Netherlands. After my Study I have worked a couple of Years for Stork Friesland. During this time I have worked many times in America.

In 1998 I saw, in a store called  “Things Remembered”, the D-Day Zippo. This was an Item I had to have. And so the “Fire” started to burn.

Since then I started to collect Zippo’s. There are specific subjects that draw my interrest. You will find these subjects on separate pages in my Collection. In 1998 I was for the first time in Bradford. At that moment there was, unfortunately, no swapmeet. In 2004 and 2006 I attended the International swapmeets in Bradford.

An unprecedented experience. I never saw so many Zippos together at one place. Unfortunately, these meetings are no longer organized by Zippo.

 

While you are here, a visit to the factory, where it is not allowed to make photos, and the head office should be made. In addition a visit to the Zippo museum (Visitors Center) is indispensable. Here you can see, among a lot of other interresting things, see what all happenes if your Zippo is repaired in the “Repair Clinic”.

 

A thing that you should not miss is the famous Zippo Car. Very careful you can take a ride in it (with a driver of course).

I also had a brief conversation with Greg Boot. Our encounter was published in the Zippo Click Edition 2004 Volume 3 :

As you can with this site it has become quite a collection. A nice item from this collection is the Zippo from 1958, my year of birth.

Gerard Kluivingh