No I have spoken to the gentleman that owned the bar these came out of. They were definitely used as lighters. But it appears they may have been original to the building, and living in a small historic town it probably dates to 1870. Perhaps as old as 1840. But the town really did not sprout up until about 1850, when the US sold the old Fort off. And since that period of time was a very difficult time for this area, the center of "Bloody Kansas", I would suspect improvements such as natural gas piping was about 20 years in the future. Having done some research it was produced by a gentleman named Welsbach, who was well known for his gas lighting, but this was his first attempt to produce a cigar or cigarette lighter. But in 1903 he succeeded and produced the first flint lighter, which the design of which is still used in todays modern day lighters. Think Zippo and you can see he idea. But as far as age goes, I would put this in the range of 1870 to 1880. Now the issue is just trying to find what kind of value there is to this!
