{"id":1755,"date":"2025-11-21T04:33:14","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T04:33:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/phillumeny.com\/johnwalker\/?p=1755"},"modified":"2026-05-28T07:01:21","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T07:01:21","slug":"on-line-exhibitor-simon-blackman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/phillumeny.com\/johnwalker\/2025\/11\/21\/on-line-exhibitor-simon-blackman\/","title":{"rendered":"Simon Blackman (UK)"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Exhibits : Chinese Match Industry<\/a>, Indian Match Industry<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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!  <\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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Three complete rare Indian matchboxes, from WIMCO<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Initially I started collecting Indian labels because they were cheap, numerous in number and easy to purchase.<\/p>\n

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). <\/p>\n

Gradually I became more interested in researching matchbox history and making my findings available to other collectors.<\/p>\n

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Two pages from my book<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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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 (\u201cTowards a Better Understanding of Chinese Matchbox Labels: A Beginners Guide to Translation\u201d) and now that I have retired am working on updating and extending it.<\/p>\n

Today I am as interested in researching the history of match manufacture as collecting matchbox labels!<\/p>\n

Click here<\/strong><\/a> to return to the Exhibition Catalogue.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Exhibits : Chinese Match Industry, Indian Match Industry 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 […] Read more<\/i><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-on-line-exhibitor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/phillumeny.com\/johnwalker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/phillumeny.com\/johnwalker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/phillumeny.com\/johnwalker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phillumeny.com\/johnwalker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phillumeny.com\/johnwalker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1755"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/phillumeny.com\/johnwalker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1755\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2208,"href":"https:\/\/phillumeny.com\/johnwalker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1755\/revisions\/2208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/phillumeny.com\/johnwalker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phillumeny.com\/johnwalker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phillumeny.com\/johnwalker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}