I have been a BML&BS member since 1968 but have collected all my life starting in the early 1950s or even late 1940s. I am also a member of the West and Midlands Phillumenists for whom I edit a quarterly magazine.
My father in 1968
My father was a railwayman and he started to keep boxes during the war when some appeared with propaganda and patriotic slogans.
While my father’s collection comprised boxes and labels mine concentrates on bookmatches, presently only those relating to the British market. Even this is a huge subject and my collection comprises about half a million items.
Hello, This is Shakil Huq from Bangladesh. I am a matchbox collector and I have been collecting for a decade.
I’m a very passionate matchbox collector. I can’t think of a day without a matchbox. I design matchboxes as well, and have designed more than five hundred matchboxes to date.
Rosemarie founded The Cornish Match Company with her late husband David in 1962, and oversaw its rise to the forefront of the UK match industry during the 1970s. Always collectors and researchers, as well as shrewd business people, the van der Planks created many iconic matchbox labels and skillets for their company, including the Old Cornish Mine and Cornish Wreck series.
On Thursday 13th May 1971 they submitted the first of two trade mark applications for Cowgirl Matches. When the Trade Mark application was originally submitted the Registrar found the art work extremely realistic and asked who the model was and if she had given written permission for her image to be part of the registration. David explained that the person was imaginary and christened her “Samantha” for the registration process. However, the drawing is actually based on Rosemarie.
Newspaper advert for Cornish Match, 1970
The company often placed newspaper adverts for their products, and in September 1970 this advert for Cowgirl appeared in the West Briton.
It promised a dinner date with Samantha for the lucky winner of a “Complete the Sentence” competition.
Rosemarie explained that a gentleman from East Cornwall won the prize and that she did meet him for dinner in a bistro in Penzance dressed in full riding gear and a Stetson. The evening went well and the gentleman later sent David a thank you letter.
The Cornish Match Company ceased trading in 1986.
Rosemarie is a regular contributor to Match Label News and is co-author of a number of phillumeny books, including :
The Match Box Collector’s Handbook (1979)
The Match Box Label Collectors Index of British Trade Marks (1979) illustrated below, click on an image below to enlarge it
Ron Norris (1939 – 2020) was one of the pre-eminent collectors of his generation. His father was a keen collector, and Ron inherited his enthusiasm and built up a large, well-research collection over the years. Ron was also a frequent contributor to matchbox magazines, willingly sharing his knowledge and passion with other people. Ron also published books about the hobby, including “Lights”.
In this exhibition we are proud to publish posthumously and for the first time Ron’s research about the Belgian and Finnish Match Industries.
I started collecting matchboxes like many others of my generation. I certainly had some by the time I started my first school, despite the attempts of my mother to dissuade me from picking them up from the ground. But that was what you could do in those times! I could obtain some six to a dozen specimens (some admittedly in very poor condition) within a ten minute walk to the shops or school.
Over the years my interest in collecting matchbox labels has come and gone, but I seriously began collecting after school.
Despite attempting to “control” the sheer volume of my collection, it continued to grow, as did my interest in the stories behind the labels, the factories that made the matches, and researching the match industry throughout the world.
I was fortunate to meet with a fellow collector, Richard Tolson, and together we formed TM Labels, a joint collection.
I’d like to introduce myself; my name is John Wilson. I’m 58 years of age. I took an interest in matchboxes from the age of 9 when friends of mine were swapping matchboxes in the school playground.
Growing up through the years, I used to buy matchboxes from all the tobacconists to enhance my collection which grew and grew.
Some years later, I found on the internet there was a matchbox club, now known as the British Matchbox Label and Bookmatch Society which I joined in April 2008.
My collection now has nearly 67,000 complete matchboxes, all different ranging from around the mid 1800s to present date from all over the world.
Exhibits : How a TV valve led to a lifetime’s hobby, Tōkaidō Road
I started collecting match covers in England in 1948 and joined the BML&BS in 1952. I have collected continuously since then, I am particularly fortunate that my work took me all over the world, and I now live in Melbourne, Australia, where I have been a member of the Australian Society for over 40 years.
I have written the history of the Australian Match Industry, “Lighting Up Australia”, and the second edition of this has just been published. I have also authored two catalogues on early labels imported into Australia and Neighbouring Countries, “Average Contents 60” and “Historical Notes on 19th and early 20th Century Matchbox Labels and Cinderellas for Australia, New Zealand and Neighbouring Countries”.
Lighting Up Australia, second edition
My book and both catalogues are available from the Australian Society, and “Average Contents 60” is available from the British Society Bookshop.
I also edited the Australian club magazine, the Observer, for 10 years, and am a frequent contributor to this and the British Match Label News.
I started collecting match labels in the 1960s. Today I collect labels, skillets, book detonators and boxes and now have over 160,000 different ones from all over the world.
I have my own website where I show part of my collection. You are very welcome to have a look : www.phillumeny.dk
