I was born in 1948 and I collected matchbox labels from my youth. I started collecting labels issued for the Czechoslovak domestic market and later I continued with the Czechoslovak labels for export.
In the last 50 years I have been collecting all labels from the former Austro-Hungarian empire.
This hobby brings me great pleasure and I make friends with many collectors in my country as well as abroad. I am member of the British Matchbox Label and Bookmatch Society.
I collect objects and information related to specific areas of interest, where innovation in fire making is concerned. After fifty years being engaged with the subject, in a very broad sense, my focus has settled on innovations created during the age of enlightenment, and until the beginning of the twentieth century.
Some of my lighters
My collection has evolved as knowledge and opportunities emerged. Information and new examples have connected enough evidence to say that a better understanding of the industry that developed and what impacts took place, as a result.
Boxes of matches used to be a familiar printed matter and were regarded fondly by people. But as a throw-away object, their life tends to be short. I embrace their fate and continue to collect them as a record of our everyday life.
Japan export to Europe, Meiji – Taisho era, 37 x 56 mm
I have been collecting for 30 years (labels and skillets 50,000+).
My collection mainly focuses on Japanese labels for export matchboxes in the Meiji – Taisho era (1868 – 1926).
I am also interested in Japanese advertisement matchboxes used for pro-war propaganda produced just before Japan’s defeat in WWII.
Some of these labels are shown in the gallery below, click on an image to enlarge it.
Matchboxes caught my attention when I was 11 years old. I started the collection imitating a cousin. At first it was a game and an excuse to escape from the family farm to explore the shops and tobacco shop.
Exploring the attics didn’t turn out, but I found “Casque d’or” box, dated mid-1920s, in a drawer at my grandparents’ house, a treasure for me at this time !
Casque d’or label, 50 x 35 mm
The virus for good infected me in 1994, at random from a newsstand, when I discovered the existence of L’Association Vitolphilique et Philumenique Francaise (AVPF) through a classified ad from a collector in a specialized newspaper. I was then 22 years old and began to search for old boxes.
I immediately made the choice to limit my collection to complete French boxes and to go back as closely as possible to the origins of this everyday object. My oldest box is from the end of the 1830s.
From before 1950 I have about 3500 complete boxes including 1000 from before the monopoly established in 1872. Over time I have also collected labels, especially for advertising boxes from the 1920s / 1930s some of which are very rare. Since 2008 I have been in charge of writing the magazine of AVPF and since 2011 chairman of the AVPF.
I am pleased that some of my previous Exhibits won Awards from the Society and are now in its Permanent Gallery.
I was introduced to the collecting of matchboxes, matchbooks, labels and more by a family friend who had worked in the Far East and who had a nice album of labels and skillets from Hong Kong that he would show me occasionally. Early on I fell into the same trap as many fledgling collectors with skillets thinned and trimmed; matchbooks bobtailed; and everything stuck into albums with rubber glue and Sellotape. So, 10 years in, my collection had to be thrown out and I started all over again!
In the intervening years I had come across a presentation pack from the Cornish Match obtained when I went to Cornwall on holiday; and learned of the existence of the British Matchbox Label and Booklet Society. A lifetime friendship with David Van Der Plank would later follow.
Three complete rare Indian matchboxes, from WIMCO
Initially I started collecting Indian labels because they were cheap, numerous in number and easy to purchase.
Slowly I branched out to other Asian countries though, somehow, I have never had the desire to collect labels from Japan or Sri Lanka (Ceylon).
Gradually I became more interested in researching matchbox history and making my findings available to other collectors.
Two pages from my book
I was in an advantageous situation as my daytime job as a computer support officer at the University of Liverpool allowed me access to research resources only available to academics. I then took night school classes in Mandarin Chinese so that I could understand labels bearing Chinese characters. A book followed (“Towards a Better Understanding of Chinese Matchbox Labels: A Beginners Guide to Translation”) and now that I have retired am working on updating and extending it.
Today I am as interested in researching the history of match manufacture as collecting matchbox labels!
I am Rupert Harris. I live a few miles from the old Moreland’s Match factory in Gloucester, England which Bryant & May acquired in 1913 and was closed in 1976. I have been collecting Bryant & May Hardware and Ephemera for over 40 years. My mother was a passionate collector and I very often accompanied her around the antique shops, fairs and markets. At the tender age of ten she encouraged me not only to look out for items that may be of interest to her but also to follow her footsteps and become a collector myself; but of what?
The Moreland’s factory was a landmark that we often passed and was very visible especially at night. For many years including after the closure of the match factory, the neon signage above the main entrance gate continued to brighten the night sky. Still there today, it comprises a pair of crossed matches and went through an ongoing looped sequence of both brown wooden splints lighting up, then the two red match heads, which then both burst into a flickering flame before brief darkness and the repeat of the cycle.
Harlequin Matches, third edition
Some brief research established that Gloucester had previously been the second largest manufacturing centre in the country behind London. The decision to become a phillumenist had been made and the collecting began. Within a year the wise decision, owing to budgetary restriction (pocket money, parent generosity) led to the narrowing of the collection to items bearing the words upon them of ‘Bryant & May’.
In 2008 I published a book about Bryant and May’s range of Harlequin Matches which is now in its third edition which adds in even more information about these fantastically colourful matchboxes.
I collect many things but matchbox labels and related items hold my strongest interest. Having been involved in the hobby for more than fifty years I find myself particularly interested in the weird and wonderful and in this respect phillumeny doesn’t disappoint, I still find things that I would never even have imagined could exist.
T B Industries type holder (140 x 50 x 50 mm)
Over the years I’ve amassed collections from an eclectic range of subjects including postage stamps, revenue stamps, fiscal documents, embossed crests and monograms, post cards, cigarette cards, beer mats, dice, coins, bank notes, bullets, Magazine of Art Annuals, Majolica green leaf plates, Portmeirion Totem ware, Irish wade ceramics, Holkham Pottery mugs, custard cups, bottles, fossils, rocks and crystals, shells, exotic seed heads, taxidermy, carved ebony elephants, Japanese lacquer ware, plus many sundry items that draw my attention but are insufficient in number to be described as collections.
Bryant & May matchbox dispensers (530 x 65 x 60 mm and 530 x 95 x 60 mm)Some curious striking tubes (58 x 38 x 25 mm)A match striker (150 x 80 x 110 mm)
Top of the list as my main and most extensive collectable interest is matchbox labels and other match related items especially the obscure and unusual.
One day when I visited a small antique shop to possibly find some coins for my newly started coin collection I instead found lots of colourful labels with animals, cars, flowers and more that turned out to be matchbox labels, the first labels I had seen up to that point. As a young student, my wallet was thin so I only bought a few that time but as soon as I had some money left over I visited the shop and in the end all the labels were mine.
For several years, the labels were left lying around (approximately 200, which I thought was an incredibly large collection) until by chance I came into contact with a collector in my own hometown Trollhättan. He showed me his collection and told me how big the Swedish match industry had been, and on that day I became a Phillumenist. In Croydon a few years later, I got to meet several collectors with whom I am today good friends, and I had the opportunity to buy labels that I had only seen in Arne Tejder’s catalogue.
1840 wooden matchbox from Malmö, 66 × 41 × 19mm
The oldest box in my collection was made in Malmö around 1840.
In Sweden there is no pure match association but only the Nordstjärnan where you can collect everything, for me it felt a bit wrong, so in order for new and old Phillumenists around the world to be able to show off, ask questions, give answers or just see nice objects, I created a group on Facebook which I called Svenska Phillumenister and today it not only has an incredible amount of knowledge through its members but has also expanded to collectors of all of Scandinavia.
You can see lots of photos of my collection on my Instagram page @phillumeny.made.in.sweden
I am fortunate in that I cannot remember not being a collector of matchboxes and their labels. The fascination was probably started by having a pipe smoking father who consumed more matches than tobacco. I do remember being very regularly scolded by my mother for picking up used boxes in the street. For many years the collection was modest and it was when I was in my 20’s I discovered the British Matchbox Label and Booklet Society, met other collectors, realised the breadth of the hobby and learned to avoid the two classic tools of many uninformed collectors – scissors and the glue pot.
My particular interests have changed and developed over the 50 plus years of collecting with the prime focus now on boxes and labels from Norway and Sweden. Along the collecting route many smaller topics such as labels imported into the UK marked Foreign Made, Bryant and May promotional skillet boxes with average contents 23 and 26, match related ephemera, books about the hobby and match making along with many other aspects of the hobby have particularly taken my attention.
I have gained great value from meeting with other collectors and learnt through sharing knowledge and seeing what and how others collect and present their collections.
I have residency in Lisbon, Portugal but I am currently living in Växjo, Sweden.
I was born in 1955 and started collecting matchbox labels and matchbooks when I was about 4 years old. Knowing about my interest in the hobby some of the phillumenists in the city of Porto encouraged me with some interesting offers. The publication in 1962 of the first catalogue of matchbox labels in Portugal allowed me to properly organize my collection. The 2nd edition of the catalogue published in 1965 and the monthly edition of the magazine “Filumenismo” gave a great boost to my development as a phillumenist.
I went on to specialise in all the material related to Portugal or that circulated in the Portuguese market and its colonies, namely Macau. My collection of Italian matchboxes/panels that circulated in Portugal in the 19th Century is very significant and formed the basis of my On-line Exhibit in 2021.
I am a founding partner of the APF – “Associação Portuguesa de Filumenismo” (founded in 1972), and currently its President.
2023 publication, Postcards in Phillumeny
I have published the following phillumenistic works, which can be purchased from APF :
Catalogue of Portuguese Matchbox Labels – Edition 1992 (co-author, text in Portuguese):
Catalogue of Matchbox Labels – Companhia Portugueza de Phosphoros – Series – 1895-1926 – 1st edition 2003; 2nd edition 2008; 3rd edition 2020; addendum 2025
Catalogue of Matchbox Labels – Portugal – XIX century – 1st edition 2011; 2nd edition 2014; 3rd edition 2022
Catalogue of Italian Matchboxes imported by Portugal – XIX century – 1st edition 2013; 2nd edition 2025
Catalogue of Matchboxes of Portuguese factories manufacture and Italian matchboxes imported by Portugal – XIX century – 2025
Addendum to the Catalogue of Matchbox Labels – Macau – 2016 edition (co-author, text in Portuguese)
Advertising Skillets and Bookmatches List – Macau – 2016 (co-author, text in Portuguese)
Phillumeny records – Portuguese Phillumeny Exhibitions – 2022
Phillumeny records – Portuguese Phillumeny Catalogues and publications – 2022
Phillumeny records – Matchbox labels produced abroad to Portuguese speaking territories – 2023
Phillumeny records – Postcard in Phillumeny – 1st edition 2023; 2nd edition 2025
Portuguese Matchbook Holders records – 2023
Matchbox Holders (grips – slides – match safes) records – Portugal – 2023
Global Addendum – Labels, skillets, matchbooks and their respective packet labels/packing papers – Addendum to different Portuguese catalogues – 2023 (co-author)
Phillumeny records – Printed matter – Advertising – Press articles – Portugal – 2025 (co-author)
Catalogue of Macau Matchbox Labels – 2026 (co-author)
