Hey, Got a Matchbook? by Linda Rosenkrantz on Creators.com

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Hey, Got a Matchbook?

Now that most of us have stopped smoking, we've also stopped being casual collectors of matchbooks. But this is far from true of the large band of ardent vintage match cover enthusiasts, more properly known as phillumenists.

Most of them concentrate on one of any number of specialized categories. Among the almost infinite number of subject-oriented areas would be airlines, automotive, banks, beer, bowling alleys, hotels and motels, Chinese restaurants, colleges, fairs, fraternal organizations, "girlies," politics related, railroads, sports, radio and TV.

Other phillumenists focus on Jewelites (matchbooks that sparkle) or covers with full-color photographs, figural-shaped or decorated matches, or match covers in which the striker is in an unusual position. There is also interest in odd-size matchbooks, such as the eight-match "midgets" made during the Depression years to cut costs.

The invention of the book of matches is credited to a Lima, Pa. lawyer named Joshua Pusey, who also dabbled in chemistry. As the story goes, he was dressing for a ball one evening and became annoyed at the way the bulky box of matches spoiled the line of his dress clothes, inspiring him to conceive of an alternative form, which he did in 1892.

As to what happened from that point on, sources differ. According to one, he placed 10 cardboard matches in a plain white board cover and sold 200 of them to the Mendelssohn Opera Company, which hand-printed messages on the front and had cast members laboriously pasting on photos through the night. According to another, his initial books contained 50 matches with the striking surface on the inside — where sparks could ignite the other matches. Three years later, the Diamond Match Company bought Pusey's patent and wisely moved the striking surface to the outside cover. Diamond was only one of several companies that had started producing match covers: Others included Atlas, Brown and Bigelow, Crown, Lion, Ohio and Universal Match.

Matchbooks became big business in 1896 when a brewing company ordered more than 50,000 books to advertise their beer.

Fulfilling this sizable order necessitated creating machinery to mass-produce matches, which had previously been dipped, dried, assembled and affixed to books by hand.

This one transaction also launched the idea of matchbook advertising. Later, because of their compactness and cheap production cost, they were used for propaganda purposes in World War II: Millions with messages printed in their native languages were dropped by Allied planes behind enemy lines in Europe and Asia. The Diamond Match Company even printed one with instructions on how to derail trains.

In the beginning, matchbooks were sold, but by the 1920s, several factors combined to make it possible (and profitable) for the books to be given away free with tobacco and cigarettes. For one thing, production costs had decreased substantially. For another, matchbooks had become a viable way of disseminating advertising copy nationally. The instant popularity of the free matchbook led to what is considered the Golden Age of the genre — from the 1940s to the mid-60s — when disposable lighters came into the picture.

Most serious collectors immediately pry open the staple that binds the book and remove the matches (or "shuck" it, in the argot of aficionados), then press the match cover under a heavy weight to flatten it and then carefully mount it into an album. In the language of phillumenia, 20-match books are called regulars, 30s are aristocrats and 40s are royal flushes; 30- and 40-match covers are also referred to as billboards.

Except for rare pre-1920s and novelty examples, matchbooks remain an extremely affordable and accessible collectible. And after all, the new ones are still free.

If you want to find out more about phillumeny, a very useful website is that of the American Matchcover Collecting Club, which has an informative online magazine called "The Front Striker Bulletin."

Linda Rosenkrantz has edited Auction magazine and authored 18 books, most recently "Beyond Ava & Aidan: The Enlightened Guide to Naming your Baby" (St. Martin's Press). Visit her baby names website at http://nameberry.com. She cannot answer letters personally. To find out more about Linda Rosenkrantz and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.