Two days after the death of his mother, at the age of 96, Prince Charles Philip Arthur George, at the age of 73, was officially proclaimed king, with the name Charles III.

The ‘Matchbox Museum’ features matches depicting the new king with his first wife Diana, Princess of Wales, who died young, as a memento of their marriage. These matches were released in 1981. Also there is a matchbox depicting Buckingham Palace, the royal residence in London, which is also the seat of the British monarchy.

We are not aware of any matchboxes depicting his wife Camilla.

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Rare Spanish matchbox featuring Billy the Kid.

Billy the Kid was a gangster who became a legend.

He was murdered at the age of just 21, but he had plenty of time to make his mark. Billy el Niño or Billy the Kid was born in 1859 in New York and his real name was William Booney and at the age of three he immigrated to Kansas City.

He had a difficult childhood. He lived in a place steeped in violence, his father died in a duel and his mother died of tuberculosis when he was just 14 years old. Difficulties led him to crime, initially committing some robberies until, at the age of 17, he put the first name on his list of more than 20 murders.

In 1878 he was arrested and sentenced to hang for the murder of a sheriff. He finally managed to escape, killing his guards. However, his freedom did not last long since in 1881, after a wild chase, he was killed.

He may not have reached the age of 22, but records, films, documentaries were created around the legend of his life, which provided a source of inspiration for western films.

It is noteworthy that one of the few surviving images of Billy the Kid was bought in 2010 by a second-hand store in the city of Fresno (California, USA) for just two dollars, while today its value exceeds 5 million!

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Two rare advertising matchboxes from the 70s. Both matchboxes in their representations advertise supermarkets operating at the time. They are relatively rare because they were released in a small print run and one of the two, which advertises the AB Vassilopoulos supermarket, belongs to the Greek monopoly. At that time, the Greek Match Monopoly began to release many matchboxes advertising banks, hotels and various businesses. The other advertises Pi-Mi, the first Greek supermarket.

Pi-Mi are the initials of the words Prizounik Marinopoulos. The word Prizounik is made up of the two French words “prix’ and “unique”, meaning unique price. For the sake of brevity, Prizounik Marinopoulos quickly became Pi-Mi. In 1962, the first supermarkets were created in Greece, whose main feature was self-service and for this they had the title “Self Service Marinopoulos”. The following year, they sign cooperation contracts with the French company Le Printemps and the stores are renamed Prisunic Marinopoulos. This collaboration stopped in 1991. This period went down in history with the mascot called Pi-Mi and became famous with the slogans “Pi-Mi with the Drachma”, “prices that don’t go any further” and “if you love your Drachma “.

Pi-Mi’s typical ad:

The history of AB Vassilopoulos begins in 1939 from a small grocery store on Voulis Street. In 1950, they created the food store “Delicatessen”, on Stadiou Street. This historic store will become the favorite destination of Athenians, who find high quality European products. In 1967, in the self-service store located in Paleo Faliro, the slogan “and the bird’s milk” will be used for the first time, which indicates an abundance and variety of goods and will become synonymous to the brand.

This expression, “and the bird’s milk”, has very old roots. Its “age” is 2,300 years old! It was written by Menandros, the comic poet of the 3rd BC century, referring to Samos of that time: “and the island brings hen’s milk” that is, the island that had everything!

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The Ohio Match Company was founded in 1895 and was the second oldest match manufacturer in the United States.

The matches that were made in Wadsworth, Ohio were beautifully illustrated and of highly aesthetic. Today many of them have special collectible value.

The private collection “The Matchbox Museum” has many matches of this company from the 1920s to the 1970s.

At first they only made wooden matches and later also paper ones.

This particular company developed into a huge industry. The factory located in Wadsworth, Ohio was the largest in the world and its premises exceeded 250.000 ft².

Every day they produced more than 300 million wooden and paper matches.

A catchphrase they coined in the 1930s was “safety matches”.

The Blue Tip Festival, a five-day celebration of the city of Wadsworth that began in the 70s and continues to this day, was named after the historic Ohio blue tip matches. The start of the celebration is marked by the lighting of a giant matchstick that stands over 20 feet tall, with a blue tip, and lights up downtown Wadsworth during the festival.

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This series has an animal theme and was launched in France by Seita which is the leading producer, distributor and marketer of tobacco products in France. Seita formerly operated as a French government tobacco monopoly. Although it is not a particularly old series, about half a century ago, it has significant collector value because it was released in a relatively small edition and the matches are very beautiful with a special and very nice illustration.

These matchboxes on the back were marked “World Wildlife Fund”, the initials of these words corresponding to the international non-governmental organization WWF which aims to preserve, research and restore the environment.

WWF’s iconic phrase is the quote from one of its founders, Sir Peter Scott: “We won’t save everything we want to, but we’ll save a lot more than if we never tried.” He is also the creator of the WWF logo which is the panda, and of course it is also on the back of matchboxes.

WWF has been accused by various quarters of not acting objectively because of its close relationships with businesses. What is certain is that in his annual reports he “succeeds” in finding words to describe the causes of the degradation of the natural environment and biodiversity, and it is usually man or humanity or civilization! But it never succeeds in naming the socio-economic-political system in which we live as a causal agent of the ecological problem, so it can be seen as preventing us from seeing the true nature of the problem.

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A whole century has passed since the Asia Minor Catastrophe. 40 years ago, in 1982, the Greek match monopoly had released a series of 10 paper matchboxes entitled: “60 YEARS WITHOUT ASIA MINOR” 1982. The series featured photos of greek philosophers, important events, places and was released in a circulation of 10 million pieces.

The Asia Minor Catastrophe is considered perhaps the greatest calamity of Hellenism throughout time. It has been mentioned that the “Asia Minor Catastrophe” can only be compared to that of 1453 and considered even greater, because the thousands of years of greek presence in the Ionian land were uprooted.

With the Treaty of Lausanne and the mandatory exchange of populations, Eastern Hellenism was forced to leave its homes after two thousand years. 1.5 million refugees arrived in Greece under miserable conditions. The nearly bankrupt greek state had to house and treat this huge population.

At the same time, with the departure of Muslims from the Greek territory, Greece became more ethnically and religiously homogeneous. The Great Idea -the main goal of Greek foreign policy for almost 100 years- has come to an end.

The Catastrophe of 1922 will cause deep breakthrough within Greek society at all levels: economic (creation of a large working class in the large urban centers), political (radicalization of the political forces), as well as cultural (new musical sounds, cuisine, new spiritual searches and literary movements, such as the generation of the ’30s, etc.)

After many years, in 1998, by a unanimous decision of the Hellenic Parliament, September 14th was established as the “Day of National Remembrance of the Genocide of the Greeks of Asia Minor by the Turkish State”.

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Bryant & May was a British company founded in 1843 to make matches. Its original match factory closed in 1979 while its last match factory closed in 1994.

In the 150 years of her life she has made thousands of different matchboxes, and many of them are in the private collection of the “matchesmuseum”.

A fascinating element of its history, but also of the development of the labor movement, was the strike that broke out in the summer of 1888, at the end of June-July, in the then well-known Bryant & May industry, which was one of the largest industrial units in Great Britain. It was called the “match girls’ strike” and is considered an iconic moment in the history of the British labor movement.

Photo with young striking workers of the Bryant & May Industry. At the far right we see a little boy who sells matches with his box. Photo from the collections of the UCT Library of the Metropolitan University of London.

Bryant & May Match Advertising. Bryant & May matches protect against fire. They are safety matches and not poisonous says the advertisement.

Aerial photography. The Bryant & May matchmaking industry from above around 1910. It was located in the Bow area of ​​East London. It was Britain’s largest industry and in its heyday employed around 3,000 workers, working and living in miserable conditions.

  In the East London suburbs, the poorest sections of London lived in squalid housing. Women and children worked for little money in the industries and workshops in the area. Many children did street work and were malnourished. Of course, they did not go to school.

1889 photograph showing cheap working-class housing on a East London street. The inhabitants are poorly dressed and we see barefoot children.

The Bryant & May match factory in 1861-1862. We see women workers.

In the mid-19th century, two Quakers, Francis May and William Bryant, teamed up to set up a trading company importing and distributing safety matches from Sweden. In 1861 the company expanded and bought in the Bow of East London a huge ruined area where in the past there were workshops for making candles, crinolines and ropes. They renovated the site’s facilities and turned them into a match factory. Their original purpose was to produce high security matches. The cost of these matches, however, was very high and for this reason, the public continued to buy the cheaper traditional matches, despite the fact that they were dangerous. So the Bryant & May factory abandoned the production of expensive safety matches and began making cheaper matches using white phosphorus, which is dangerous to workers’ health.

Female workers at the Bryant & May match factory. 1871. Warder Collection.

Newspaper lithograph (1905) depicting female workers putting phosphorous matches in boxes. The majority of workers in the match industry were women, mostly young girls but also girls thirteen or thirteen years old.

Poor children, girls and boys, were selling matchboxes on the streets of London.

Henry Mayhaw, The Girl Who Sells Matches. 1861-1864. Museum of London.

Boy selling matches in East London. Late 19th-early 20th c. He is barefoot.

Some poor women worked from home, filling boxes with matches supplied by the Bryant & May industry. They earned little money needed to supplement their meager family income.

Photo showing a woman and a little girl at the table in their yard putting matches in boxes. Around 1900.

Workers at the Bryant & May Match Factory in the late 19th century. Working conditions were very difficult, workers were treated inhumanely and their pay was extremely low. In addition, white phosphorus was very dangerous to the health of workers who often had a type of bone cancer.

The inhumane working and living conditions of matchmakers were made public by radical journalist Annie Besant, who published fiery articles in the social media newspaper “The Link” against the Bryant & May company and in favor of worker protection.

The militant radical journalist and activist Annie Besant (1847-1933). She left her conservative family life (she had two children) with her clerical husband, to devote herself to the struggle for the rights of women and workers. He wrote articles in newspapers and aroused the public with her fiery speeches. She moved to the socialist circles of London, she was a friend of the famous Irish writer Bernard Shaw, of Eleanor Marx (daughter of Karl Marx) and other well-known left-wing politicians and intellectuals of England. She was in favor of the Indian national movement (she traveled to India where she was politically active) and the Irish struggle for national self-determination.

Annie Besant in the 1880s. She was actively involved in the Bryant & May matchmaker strike, organized their struggle, defended their rights and led their committee.

    In June 1888, at a meeting of leftists and socialists, Besant overheard left-wing activist Clementina Black talk about women labor and learned about the working conditions and low wages of Bryant & May industry workers. Shocked by what she heard, she went outside the factory and managed to interview some of the workers, who confirmed Black’s information.

   Besant learned that the women worked fourteen hours a day for five shillings a week, an amount that was often not paid in full, due to fines imposed by the administration. Fines were imposed if they spoke during working hours, if matches were falling from their hands, if they went to the toilet without permission, if they were late to get to work.

   On June 23, 1888, Besant published an article in the left-wing newspaper “The Link”, of which she was the publisher and editor. The article was titled “White Slavery in London” and referred to the working conditions of Bryant & May’s industrial workers. In addition, she talked about the effects that the preparation of matches with white phosphorus had on the health of workers. Their skin turned yellow, their hair fell out, they contracted a bone necrosis disease and eventually died. Although some countries had banned the use of phosphorus for making matches (e.g. Sweden, USA), it was banned in Great Britain in 1910.

The second page of “The Link” newspaper where Besant’s article was published.

Besant’s publications in the newspaper continued in July.

   The publication of the article provoked the reaction of the factory management. The workers were forced to sign a statement that Besant’s information was not true. When three workers refused, they were fired from the factory. This was the reason for the mobilization of their colleagues. In early July 1888 a group of 200 workers, mostly young girls, left their jobs in the match factory and went to the newspaper office to ask for Besant’s support. The strike had begun.

Newspaper lithograph depicting workers protesting in the streets of London. Many of the workers who took part in the strike were of Irish descent.

   The number of strikers soon increased to 1,400 workers, despite the terrorism perpetrated by the factory management. Threats to relocate the plant to another city or to Norway and the false statements of its founders to the press did not dampen the workers’ militant mindset organized under Besant.

   Eventually, the factory management, under pressure from the public, was forced to back down and accept the workers’ demands for better working conditions and the provision of basic health care.

Lithograph from a newspaper of the time. The workers are protesting at the entrance of the factory.

Photo depicting the Committee of Striking Workers with Annie Besant in the center giving a speech.

Three striking workers, members of the Commission. Detail of the same photo. Uneducated and unskilled workers, with no previous experience in the trade union movement, found themselves at the forefront of a strike that shook London for three weeks.

   Annie Besant organized the Committee of Striking Workers and directed their struggle. He even managed to lead the members of the Commission to Parliament and to be accepted by Members to whom they made their demands for better working conditions.

Two Bryant & May matchmakers. The industry survived in the same area until the 1970s.

Bryant & May factory workers. Photo from the last years of operation. The name of the company Bryant & May still survives and the usage rights belong to a Swedish company.

The factory today. The buildings have been renovated and converted into modern apartments for those who have the money to live in a historic space and the mood to live daily in the atmosphere of the past with the comforts of mo

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In 1844 the first safety match was made by the Swede Gustav Eric Pas. They were called safety matches because the first matches had various problems, such as the flame was not stable and the initial reaction was quite violent and therefore it was dangerous, also the smell they emitted was unpleasant.

Ten years later, in 1854, their construction was improved by John Edward Lundström, and he and his brother set up factory in Jönköping, Sweden. Now the factory has been turned into a match museum.

In 1917, Ivar Kreuger founded the Svenska Tändsticks Aktiebolaget (STAB) in Jönköping, also known as the “City of Matches”.

In 1930, the company controlled 60% of world match production and was the sole owner of match companies in 33 countries.

Also many Greek matches that were released at the beginning of the last century were made in Sweden.

Sweden has a special and long tradition not only in the manufacture of matches but also in their aesthetics.

The private collection of the “Matchesmuseum” has many Swedish matchboxes that were released from the beginning of the last century until recently, with some of them having a special collectible value.

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A series of Austrian matches in whose performances we see castles of Austria.

They are wooden matchboxes made from the early 1950s to 1955 in Switzerland by the Terza Schweizer Zündhölzer.

This series is quite rare and has significant collectible value.

Of all the parts of Europe, Austria certainly has some of the best castles known around the world. Each of its castles is a story. The castles in Austria are so enchanting that they look like they come from a fairy tale!

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Cypriot matchboxes where most of them are over 6 decades old.

 Beautiful wooden matchboxes, with landscapes from Cyprus, which are before the Turkish invasion of the island.

Four different matchboxes depicting Ethnarch Makarios.

Aphrodite in representations of two matchboxes, since, as it is known, according to the Homeric legend, Aphrodite was born on a coast of Paphos in Cyprus, that is why she was given the nickname “Cypriot”!

Machboxes also have on their labels the Cypriot “agrino”, the wild sheep of Cyprus.

But also a rare large matchbox, an envelope, which in its representation has two photos from the celebration of Easter and Salamis of Famagusta.

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