Blog: matchbooks

From the reference box #137

#137 - Matchbooks & matchbook covers. This little lot were in a collection of souvenir match books I was given recently. The majority of the covers are uninspiring design-wise, but there's something about the ones above, be it their tacky charm or giant graphics that jumped out at me - especially the flame graphic!

We have many more matchbook covers in the reference box and on our blog, take a look here.

From the reference box # 77






#77 - More matchbooks! Here's a selection of 70's and early 80's matchbooks I managed to get my hands on last week at an autojumble?!

The typography is great, especially on the BEA and Berni logos, but most of all I'm loving the thick black outline of the Wesson illustrations and the delicate skier illustrations on the Wyoming one.

This collection is getting pretty big these days - check out more here, here and here.

From the reference box # 74

#74 - More matchbooks. My very kind dad bought me this collection at a car boot sale for only £3 and this weekend I got my hands on them for the first time. It's a really great collection of 105 mainly 80's matchbooks with only a few doubles. Needless to say I was extremely grateful.

Above is a pic of the whole collection and below are some pics of my favourites covers (please excuse the crappy iPhone pics, I'll scan them all in asap and add them to my Flickr set).
Thanks Dad!

More Saul Bass Matchbooks


It was a while back when I posted about a lucky blogger finding some of these wonderful Hunt-Wesson matchbooks, designed by Saul Bass on a flea market. Well I still haven't found any at my local boot sale, but design:related member Karen Horton has just found almost a full set (14 of the 16 and lots of doubles)...

"while rummaging the Chelsea Flea Market with no particular agenda, I had a hunch I recognized a few Saul Bass designs peering out of a randomly assorted box. What made the Saul Bass designs stand out instantly is that they were the only matchbook covers in a pile of hundreds sans advertising-related text or graphics."




Nice one Karen, that's a great collection - I'm not jealous in the slightest (well maybe a little!)

Via Notcot.

Saul Bass designed Matchbooks


I love these matchbooks found at a flea market by the very lucky Mary & Matt. They were designed for US food company Hunt-Wessen by the wonderful Saul Bass Associates, who also created their company logo in 1964...
I saw the full set of matchbooks for the first time at the Design Museum's Saul Bass exhibition in 2004 and remember thinking how great it would be to find some at a carboot sale. It just goes to show it can happen!

Matchbook image copyright Mary & Matt.
Via Oh Joy!

Mystery parcel


It's always nice to get an unexpected parcel in the post, but even more exciting when it's full of vintage ephemera - especially matchbooks! So a very big thank you to Jack Hooker for sending us a great selection.

Here are a few of my favourites. I especially like the Air India one and it's actually made of wood, the P&O one has different destinations stamped into the bottom of each match (which can just be made out in the pic) and I love the VIA one with 'Bon Voyage!' printed on the inside.


They will all be added to my Flickr group asap.

Volkswagen Matchbooks



I found these on the Samba, a US VW forum - VW's and vintage matchbook covers - 2 of my favourite things combined. What a delight! It's a really good collection, ranging from the 50's to the 70's.

More matchbooks here and here.

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