Rare collectible series of Belgian matchboxes mainly from the 1960s. The first matches of this series were released in the late 50s and the last ones in the early 70s.

The first ones released were wooden, while those released in the 70s were paper. They also differed in the number of matches they contained. The original version had 30 matches, while later versions had more matches.

This series was called “Flags of the Nations” and a common feature was the scene on the left side of the front representation of the matchboxes.

The private collection of the “Matchbox Museum” https://matchesmuseum.com/el/archiki/ has matchboxes of the first and the older edition.

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One of the very rare and old Greek matchboxes owned by the “Matches Museum” is “Tsolias”.

“Tsolias”, the matchbox, is from the period of the Greek monopoly. It was manufactured in 1930 in Finland and of course the box is wooden.

The “Tsoliades” (plural of the word Tsolias), or ” Evzones ” in other words, are elite group of soldiers of the Greek army. Their uniform was officially established by King Otto of Greece, which he was also wearing to official appearances.

Through their historical action, the Evzones had become symbols of bravery for the Greek people. Nowadays, the soldiers of the greek Presidential Guard are called “Evzones”, and they carry out missions of a symbolic nature, mainly guarding the Monument to the Unknown Soldier and the Presidential Palace.

What is unexpected is the etymology of the word “Tsolias “, which is derived from the Turkish word “chul”, from which our well-known word “choli” comes, meaning a worn carpet or garment. Thus, “Tsolias” is the one who is dressed in scumbags, i.e. the dirty, the ragged, the worthless, the lewd. The Turks called “Tsoliades”   the Greek fighters of the Revolution completely derogatory.  It is curious how this incredibly offensive characterization was retained, not by the Turks, but by the Greeks…

In 1868, when the Presidential Guard was established, the Homeric word “Evzonos” (the well-girded) was chosen to describe the men who served in it.

And in any case, the signified of the word “Tsolias” now is certainly a masculine man of great stature and imposing.

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Matchboxes that had stickers from the Lycabettus secret organization on both sides.

For those who don’t remember, “Lycavittos” was a strange organization, rumored to be controlled by Miltiades Evert. At that time, posters with the signature “Lycavittos” were mostly stuck in Athens, but even more rarely you could find matchboxes with stickers of the organization on their front view and backside.

It is no coincidence that both the posters of “Lykavittos” and the matchboxes borrowed the arguments and the front pages of the best representative of the yellow press that ever existed in Greece, the newspaper “Avriani”.

From the title of the newspaper, the term Avrianism was established, which entered our lives for good.

What is Avrianism? An idiosyncratic fascism, a miserable “model” of para-journalism, which always supports the dominant ideology. Avrianism taught us that you can fabricate the biggest lie and the biggest hoax, target people, and not only not get punished, but instead reap benefits and become an important institutional factor.

Avrianism is not over. It still exists today, more sophisticated, perhaps sometimes in a disguised form, in the morning shows, on TV windows, on the internet…

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Rare collectible series of French matches, of the state monopoly, consisting of 15 different matchboxes.

The matchbox shows are about fire and are humorous with puns on the word “fire”.

The series was released in 1969 and not in large circulation. This particular series is characterized not only for its humor but also for its finesse.

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There are tons of matches that have a car theme.

Shown here are matchboxes of cars in their performance from the early years of the automobile industry, late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The automobile industry was an important stage of development in humanity and led to the gradual removal of old means of transport such as the carriage.

The first car manufacturer in the world founded in 1883 was Mercedes-Benz. Its founder was Karl Benz.

Also, the French Peugeot is one of the oldest in this industry, as in 1891, it had manufactured its first vehicle, the Type 3. In fact, the French brand manufactured them in the same area where bicycles were made.

Czech Tatra also operated as a vehicle manufacturer in 1897.

The French company Renault was founded in 1898, with Marcel Renault, who was its co-founder, killed in a race in 1903.

In 1899, Germany’s Opel began producing its own vehicles, but its primary role was not that. In the same year, has also started the Italian FIAT.

After years, the American Henry Ford opened his own business also known as Ford Motor Company, in 1903. General Motors, Aston Martin and then many others followed.

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There are very few matchboxes depicting the Marathon Road and not in Greek.

In the “Matches Museum” there is a Czechoslovak-made matchbox from the 1950s that has a depiction of the Marathon Road.

 November 13 is the day of the Athens Marathon.

The Marathon Road is a road endurance race, covering an official distance of 42.195 kilometers, included in the modern Olympic sports.

The race owes its name to the historical route of the Athenian soldier who, after the battle of Marathon (490 BC), ran from the battlefield to Athens to convey the victorious news with the word “nenikikamen” (we won). Pheidippides is often identified with this soldier. In reality, however, the name of this soldier remains unknown.

In ancient times there was no “marathon road” as a sport. When the modern Olympic Games became a reality at the end of the 19th century, the founders and organizers were looking for a great event, reminiscent of the ancient glory of Greece. The idea of ​​organizing the marathon race came from the French linguist and Hellenist Michel Bréal, who proposed during the revival of the 1896 Olympic Games in Athens “the repetition of that famous road that the soldier of Marathon had ran”.

In the Athens Marathon of 1896 the distance covered by the athletes was 40 km. The winner of this race was the Marousiotis Spyros Louis (whose profession was to carry water), who made history!

The distance of 42.195 meters was later determined on the occasion of the 1908 London Olympics. The distance of 42 kilometers is the distance between Windsor Castle and the Olympic stadium in Shepherd’s Bush in west London. The distance was set at 42 kilometers plus a lap of the stadium which ended up being 42,195 meters, taking into account the best seat for the royal family!

There used to be a short joke about the Marathon: “Marathon in Iran”, given the symbolism of the race. In April 2016, however, was organized the first Marathon in Iran, in Tehran.  

The Tehran Marathon, which had the slogan: “I run iran” had its “peculiarities”.

An unpleasant surprise awaited the athletes. Many had come to Iran specifically for the Marathon, but in recent days the government has forced the organization to ban women from the Marathon and the 20 km race, allowing them to run only 10 km. And that not on a public road, but inside the Olympic park with spectators limited to the finish area only. The mobility of women in the area of ​​the hotel that houses the secretariat is intense and they discuss how to react. Others compromise. Others risk it and choose to run irregularly, next to the men. In both cases, they must cover their bodies completely as prescribed by Islamic dress. And even under these conditions, however, participating in a street race is something groundbreaking for women in Iran.

The second unpleasant intervention of the government in the organization was the removal of the word Marathon from the official name of the race, so the 1st Tehran Marathon became: the 1st International Persian Road. In part, one might say, it is understandable. For example, would the French ever organize a Waterloo Road Race?

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Matchboxes from the 70s from the German airlines, Lufthansa. They are quite rare since airlines have naturally stopped issuing promotional matchboxes for many years.

The “Matchbox Museum” has matches from 50 different airlines: https://matchesmuseum.com/el/airline-matches-el/

Smoking was permitted during air travel until the 1980s. That is, passengers who were smokers could enjoy their cigarettes, even cigars, inside the aircraft, without their seats being separated from those of non-smokers, with flight attendants walking down the aisles selling packets.

This regime changed after 1988. The beginning was made with America banning smoking, both on flights arriving and departing from it. After this initiative, other companies were also mobilized. That’s when the airlines basically stopped making promotional matches. Olympic Airways banned smoking inside its aircraft only in the early 2000s!

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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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