December 30, 2025

Stefan Joset (Switzerland)

My name is Stefan Joset, I am 65 years old and already retired. I live in Switzerland in a village near Basel, where I grew up. I have been a collector for as long as I can remember. It started with postage stamps, collected all advertising art from banana labels to beer mats and over the years it has all taken up way too much space. That’s why I reduced my collections and now specialize only in Swiss matchbooks, Swiss chocolate wrappers and Liebig pictures (trade cards).

Here are a few examples of Liebig pictures and chocolate wrappers (more information on the chocolate wrappers can be found here).

Liebig card

Chocolate wrapper - Praline

Chocolate wrapper - Milch

Chocolate wrapper - Heritage

In my free time, I am still in charge of the Swiss Match Museum and mainly take care of sorting, archiving and cataloguing our collection and exhibits. In addition, I take care of the homepage and organize the international exhibition Phillonex every year.

I really like the variety and rich colours of the Swiss bookmatches, which are decorated with a local animal, the chamois. For decades, this trademark was emblazoned on the products of our then largest match factory in Switzerland.

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December 28, 2025

Roger Fennings (UK)

Exhibit : Chronology of the global match industry

Roger is a lifelong collector of matchboxes. His career as musician, journalist and public relations consultant has involved extensive international travel – and enabled him to keep adding to his collection and make research visits to remote match factories.

Fascinated by the diversity of graphic design found on matchbox labels, and by the use of the matchbox as a communications mechanism, he used his personal collection as a treasure trove of knowledge from which to draw on as the basis for his 2001 book “The Book of Matchbox Labels”.

Roger is a member of the British Matchbox Label and Bookmatch Society and a regular contributor to its journal Match Label News.

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December 28, 2025

Richard Tolson (UK)

Exhibit : Chronology of the global match industry

My parents read an article on matchbox collecting in the Daily Mail newspaper and as a result my society membership started in 1977. This was a few years after deciding to collect matchboxes, rather than big black beetles, whilst on a family holiday in Bulgaria.

Finding a new label, skillet or piece of information still gives me a thrill. My collecting interests are wide but I am particularly interested in S.J. Moreland & Sons Ltd of Gloucester, UK imports before WWII and issues from smaller countries.

I am a member of the society committee where I enjoy working with the other committee members on various projects and issues. Also, I have been the society auctioneer since the last century.

The hobby has been an important part of my life and the Society has an important role to play to ensure it is there for future generations.

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December 23, 2025

Flor Millán Herrera (Spain)

Exhibit : A Salesman’s Samples

Flor Millán Herrera is one of the foremost phillumenists in Spain, and along with her husband Javier has given huge support and encouragement to many collectors over the years.

Flor and Javier live in Zaragoza which is where Javier worked for the Spanish match company Fosforera Española. In a career of over 40 years, spent between Zaragoza and Madrid, they accumulated a vast knowledge of the way matches were designed, made and distributed throughout the Iberian peninsula and beyond. They hold an impressive archive of company documentation as well as an extensive collection of Spanish match box labels.

Javier is a huge admirer of Francisco de Goya and has a collection of over 4500 books concerning the works and life of the great Spanish painter.

Flor is extremely generous sharing her expertise and enthusiasm with other phillumenists and has contributed a number of articles to Match Label News in the last few years.

The BML&BS is delighted to welcome Flor as a guest exhibitor.

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December 28, 2025

Ed Wright (Canada)

Exhibit : WWII propaganda bookmatches

Ed Wright (1947 – 2026) was born in Luton, Bedfordshire and attended Westminster College where he trained as a chef. His career allowed him to travel and work in seven different countries before emigrating to Canada in 1973. He worked in Jasper, Alberta in the Rockies for two years as well as Edmonton, Alberta and ended his career as a Professor at George Brown College in Toronto where he taught for 32 years. After retiring in 2019 Ed was able to spend more time catching up on his hobby.

Ed initially got into collecting as a schoolboy. A family friend and neighbour worked in the employee canteen at the Electrolux Plant and nearly every day she would bring him bags and bags of discarded matchboxes to sort for something to do during the school holidays. This certainly kept him occupied and began a life long interest. Over the years, Ed’s hobby expanded into other areas such as Match Box Labels, Matchbooks, Vesta Boxes, Strikers, Match Crates and miscellaneous Match Ephemera.

His greatest interest was in Foreign Made Labels, Wartime Propaganda, British Royalty, Airlines, as well as old Canadian Matchboxes especially those with Tax Stamps.

As a child, Ed was a very early member of the Trans Canada Match Club and when he arrived in Toronto he decided to re-join as the meetings were held close to his home. Ed told Pat Griffiths, one of the original founding members, and Pat gave him his old original number back which was quite an early one, and they used to meet up from time to time to trade and discuss new finds locally, which sadly had dwindled due to the decline in Canada of the popularity of matches.

After retiring Ed joined the Rathkamp Matchcover Society in the USA who hold a yearly convention and Ed attended many where he made friends willing to trade covers or boxes or information by post, as it was not always possible to go personally. Like many people, Ed found himself busier during retirement than when working.

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December 16, 2025

Barry Sturman (Australia)

Exhibit : Bengal matches – a colourful story

I began collecting matchbox labels when I was about 11 years old. I first became interested in matchboxes when I noticed a matchbox that was made out of thin wood instead of the usual cardboard and had a completely different label from the local “Redheads” brand. For several years I was quite an enthusiastic collector, but eventually gave up the hobby. For some reason I took it up again in the mid 1980s and since then have accumulated quite a hoard of all sorts of items related to matches.

In my retirement I have been attempting to convert this hoard into a properly organized collection. This exhibit shows what I hope to achieve, but there is a long way to go.

As I am now nearly 75 years old, I regret that I have unwisely accumulated far more material than I am ever likely to have time to sort, catalogue and display. Disposal of a collection seems to be a perennial problem amongst collectors as old age advances, especially when the family has no interest in the accumulated items.

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December 2, 2025

Visitor Book

Read what Visitors to our On-line Exhibition “John Walker – lighting up the world” thought of the show.