Peanuts, as mentioned above, can be good:
I have one that lives on my keyring. On the plus side it doesn't seem to leak much at all. It isn't a lighter I take much notice of because it is just an emergency tool. It bounces about amongst all the other crap that's on my keyring day in day out for months at a time before I think “yeah, wonder if that needs a top up”. And that's usually only because I catch a glimpse of it out the corner of my eye whilst filling something else. Invariably it doesn't need anything. Another plus is that the brutal simplicity of it means it can run on a wide range of stuff if I was really in a pinch. The bad is that because they are crude [you could make one with a bit of mop pushed through a hole], and that they run on unpressurized liquid fuel, they are far from efficient. Add in the weeny size and they aren't the kind of user friendly thing one would want to use with any regularity. In short; the simple, strong, idiot proof backup is why I have one as a fill and forget jobbie. It would be a very poor primary tool.
I too think Ronson makes a good lighter, but I move in a different direction to the torch flame ones:
The Ronson ones might be fantastic for all I know but there are two reasons why I won't go that way. First, I've owned a lot of torch flame type lighters from the couple of quid market efforts to others I paid about £50 for. For sure some are better than others. Some have multiple jets rather than a single one. Some have a pair of wire elements that cross the jet stream rather than just one or none. But the short version is, not one of them lasted more than a year or so. It doesn't seem to matter whether they have generic jets inside or something that looks proprietary, they don't survive me very well.
Additionally, I can't abide that piezo ignition business. It might be good for a bit but it is a distinct weak spot. I lost count long ago of the amount of times I used a spark from a different source to ignite a lighter 'cos the piezo either stopped working or no longer shorted in the required direction to ignite the gas. Roll this up together with the jet flame action above and I'm done with these. I'm at the point now at which, regardless of price, I think “cheapo non-user-serviceable-parts that may be in a fancy shell”. The world seems to love them for their convenience and I am out of step. The price for that convenience is a very short honeymoon period followed by “you too huh”.
Where I'm at with the Ronsons is distinctly old school in what can inaccurately yet usefully be described as the Rollagas action. Essentially, it has a conventional flint loaded into a familiar sprung loaded magazine mechanism, and a big long wheel to rotate the grinder that abrades it. Simple and serviceable. Pop the lid and it will eject gas 'till you close it, so there's your candle mode. No need to keep a finger on a gas release button. And the flame is variable. For sure crud will eventually build up in the gas nozzle, it's the nature of the beast with any of these sorts of lighter be it a Dunhill or a Clipper / Bic, but it is serviceable. If you can't do it yourself there are plenty of places that will do it for you.
Entry level for this club would be the Ronson Aurora. It's a simple, solid workhorse device. Don't necessarily limit yourself to those though. This feeds back to the “Rollagas style”. Probably the most well known heavy hitter there are the Dunhills, but you will pay over the tool value because they are very collectable. I've bought a couple of Dunhills for my woman 'cos she like that kind of thing but I can't say they are any better than the Ronsons or Pierre Cardins I've bought her, as tools.
So, have a plot up on the Rollagas style to expand on what I said, and if you want to by new look at the Ronson Aurora. That said, there's a second hand store near me that often has much older and more expensive ones for a very good price. Unfortunately, because of their age many of them are obnoxiously styled to my eye and makes one look like a cigar smoking mong from a golf course with a good pinch of '70s Del Boy thrown in. If you can get past that you can probably pick up a fantastic mechanism for silly cheap.
