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Man Shares Big Lighter Collection At Library

Cheryl Bentley/SUNCOAST NEWS

John M. Angelini shows off a tiny telephone that is really a cigarette lighter. A display of more than 200 of Angelini’s cigarette lighters is now at the Hudson Regional Library.

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By Cheryl  Bentley | The Suncoast News

Published: February 6, 2008

Smoking is good. At least it is in John M. Angelini's case. The usually reviled habit provided the impetus for his 20-year collection of more than 500 cigarette lighters.

About half of them are lighting up the Hudson Regional Library in a display that opened last week.

The 86-year-old Angelini clung to his smoking habit even through a major heart attack in 1979.

"I tried to quit, but the need was too strong," he recalls.

He finally stopped two decades later, in 1999, when he had to have triple bypass heart surgery.

But he has kept up his hobby even though he no longer lights up. "They're interesting to look at," he says of the lighters.

He's always on the lookout for additional pieces and is careful to remind friends and family of his hobby before they embark on trips.

"My admonition to them is you can't go unless you bring me a lighter."

Evidently, he is successful. He pulls out three lighters in the shape of guitars that are mounted in a shadow box that was a recent gift from his son.

The former art director for a packaging company in Paterson, N. J., Angelini, who now lives northeast of the Hudson area, has always looked at the lighters as attractive as well as utilitarian objects.

"I become struck by the beauty of some of those lighters," he explains.

He pulls out a bicycle-shaped lighter with working brakes and wheels. It was a recent gift from a friend who bought the lighter in France.

Angelini pronounces it one of the most creative of his collection. But it has competition from a host of other Angelini favorites.

With his eyes sparkling, the 86-year-old keeps bringing them out: binoculars, camera, working abacus, fire extinguisher, milk carton, working watch. Like tiny fixtures in a child's dollhouse they spread across a kitchen table.

Deciding which ones to include in the display at the library could have been problematical, but Angelini came up with a solution.

He decided to put in a little of everything. He divided the lighters into categories, including novelty, foreign, vehicles, tools, animals, bronzes and weapons, to give the viewer a feel for the great variety of lighters.

Angelini's hobby began 25 years ago with a collection of matchbooks.

You can bet he still has those, too. He delights in showing their assorted shapes and covers.

Some have secret drawers. Others have embossed covers that make them look like tiny jewel boxes.

Angelini even has a pair of matchbooks with pictures of him and his wife Elisabeth on the covers.

The matchbook collection later morphed into collecting the lighters. The hobby is not an expensive one. The most he has ever spent on a lighter is $30.

Mostly, says Angelini, the matchbooks and lighters are only a small part of a full life.

"I look at them once in a while, and when we have company, I show them."

He spends much of his time drawing, painting with watercolors and writing.

The walls of the Angelini home, where the couple has lived for the past 17 years, are covered with about 140 of his paintings and sketches.

Angelini has had exhibits of his art in museums and art events in New York, New Jersey, England, Japan and Australia.

He pulls out a recent pencil drawing of two railroad spikes, a piece of coal and a feather. The objects seem to go together, a kind of paean in pencil to simpler times.

Angelini is also a master gardener and creates bonsai.

"I'm a busy guy," he says.

The Angelini exhibit will run through Feb. 29 at the Hudson Regional Library, 8012 Library Road, Hudson, between Fivay Road and Hudson Avenue.

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