Collecting Matches and Matchbooks
While the great Eggnog Riot of 1826 was settling down, John Walker, of the U.K., was perfecting the first commercial friction match that would be sold commercially in April of 1827. By the 1860's the first automatic match production machine had been designed and matches became an industrialized object, rather than a handcrafted one. Paper matches were patented much later in the 1880s. The Matchbook design was patented by Charles Bowman in 1882 (it would not change much) who sold his patent to the Diamond Match Trust in 1896. Diamond Match Co. was first mass-producer of paper matchbooks. Matchbooks and boxes were often used to advertise and promote various types of politics, businesses, and products, which is exactly what makes them so collectable.
Matches don't rank in the top-10 most popular collectibles, but wine and stamps do. Did you know that there exists a specif terminology for what to call various collectors? Stamp Collectors for instance are called Philatelists, Coin Collectors - Numismatists, Arctophiles are Teddy Bear Collectors. So I checked into what Matchbook Collectors are called, turns out Matchbook Cover collectors are Phillumenists, which makes sense because 'phil' is a prefix meaning to love and 'lumen' means light in Latin. However, I also came across an extract from J. Rendell's 1963 book, Collecting Matchbook Labels :
"Despite the fact that the word 'phillumenist' has come to a certain extent into general use the only correct appellation for the subject remains 'matchbox label collecting' and the serious student of it describes himself or herself as no more or less than a 'matchbox label collector'".
Ok then, that settles that. Here is a personal collection of my parents.
Matches don't rank in the top-10 most popular collectibles, but wine and stamps do. Did you know that there exists a specif terminology for what to call various collectors? Stamp Collectors for instance are called Philatelists, Coin Collectors - Numismatists, Arctophiles are Teddy Bear Collectors. So I checked into what Matchbook Collectors are called, turns out Matchbook Cover collectors are Phillumenists, which makes sense because 'phil' is a prefix meaning to love and 'lumen' means light in Latin. However, I also came across an extract from J. Rendell's 1963 book, Collecting Matchbook Labels :
"Despite the fact that the word 'phillumenist' has come to a certain extent into general use the only correct appellation for the subject remains 'matchbox label collecting' and the serious student of it describes himself or herself as no more or less than a 'matchbox label collector'".
Ok then, that settles that. Here is a personal collection of my parents.
Sas - Scandinavian Airlines was founded Aug. 1st 1946. Smoking inflight was cancelled Jan. 1986.
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Gurney's Inn was opened in 1926 by Maude Gurney. It was built on the bluffs overlooking the Atlantic Ocean on one of the easternmost locations in the U.S. It is still running as a hotel and spa.
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The Ohio Match Co., the producers of the Rosebud Matchboxes, was founded in 1895, only a few years after Diamond. In 1938 they began regular production of reverse-strikers on matchbooks, as a safety precaution, 35 years before it became the industry standard. The company folded in 1987.
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In the early 20th century due to an oversupply of fruit production, the California Fruit Growers Exchange, an earlier name for Sunkist Growers, inc., launched the first ever large scale advertising campaign of a perishable product, oranges.
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Montmarte was a luxery resort that opened Feb. 1959 on Miami Beach. It was a destination hot spot and cost $12-$24 a night. Famous artists, musicians, and actors, painted, performed, and hosted parties. By 1981 is was in disrepair and was torn down.
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In 1844 safety matches were patented by Gustav Erik Pasch in Sweden, giving birth to the catchphrase, "Saftey Matches-Strike against the box only." Three stars matches was an improvement upon this patent, created by brothers, Johan Edvard and Carl Frans Lundstrom, whose factory was located in Jonkoping, a small town in south central Sweden. They debuted their safety matches at the 1855 World Expo in Paris.
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Marimekko is a Finnish textile design house. It was founded in 1951 by Armi + Viljo Ratia in the Printex printing factory in Helsinki.
"Mainostikku hamino" as found in the inside of the matchbook is finnish for "hamina advertising sticker." hamina is a major port in Finland.
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Suomi means "Finnish" in Finnish.
"Suomi tukkukauppojen-keskis. 50 kpl" roughly translates to "Finnish wholesale stores-on average 50 pieces." -
In 1913 Camels were among the first commercially sold packaged cigarettes. The name is derived from the Turkish tobacco packed inside, a calculated choice, modeled after the then popular Egyptian cigarettes.
These matchbooks are ca. 1990's
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