Pipe lighter (Pipe tongs)

Description

These pocket-size brass and iron pipe tongs are designed to be an all-in-one tobacco tool. The long flat iron side could double as a striker to ignite a spark, the rounded terminal on the brass handle served as a tamper, and both sides are hinged together with a steel spring providing tension for the grooved tips to hold a light for a pipe bowl. Metal tongs of this type are variously called pipe tongs, ember tongs, or tobacco tongs. An early example of the form was excavated at the fort site in Historic Jamestown, Virginia. In the 1890s the term "smoker's companion" emerged to describe similar tobacco tools.