Matchbooks

As a kid, I was a bit of a collector. I bought Topps baseball, football, and hockey cards in wax-packs with stale sticks of gum because I loved the sports, and because that's what kids collected in the '70s. My friends and I hoarded them, coveted them, traded them, and occasionally gambled for them.

During my early teens, my card consumption fell off and I picked up two new items: bottle caps and matchbooks. Both pursuits were far less social. Neither would cast me as a misfit, but I kept them to myself. It felt a bit Mad Men, which I liked — the paraphernalia of drinking and smoking — and more grown up than I actually was.

In the '70s, exotic bottlecaps were more difficult to come by than they are now, so matchbooks won out. As a collectible, you could do far worse. All the restaurants and bars had matches. They're free — not even requiring patronage — and there are always new places to eat and drink. Matchbooks are small, geographical snapshots, relics, conjuring memories and melancholy; they light our fire. In a pinch, they might even save a life.

In retrospect, the matchbooks were more to do with my interest in art and graphic design than anything else. I was taking design classes during high school, studying typesets at the local repro shops before fonts became things piled on our computer and worthy of multimedia brillance and hip documentaries. Some were clean, some ornate, some curvy. And the line art — some muddy, some art deco, some racy. My collection was a library, an encyclopedia of design — some god-awful, some outstanding.

I like all the ones below, some for admittedly personal reasons. All tell a bit of a story, be it through their design or through my stories associated with them. And many of these places are gone — one, heartbrakingly so. (Click on any pic for a closer look.)

Comments

[Bill]

Nice post, nice medley of matchbooks. Did you scan these all in? I had a similar fascination with orange crate/fruit crate labels for a while, but they were harder to collect. The ones I did collect I got for the boxes, actually, from Rex's in Choteau, and not many were were anything special artistically-- but they're still up on the wall at the Barn...

[Dan]

I have an enormous collection of matchbooks. Started, like you, in the 70s. I have four or so from the two restaurants at the top of the World Trade Center, and lots from "down the shore". Have kept it up, maniacally my spouse might say (or would she say "obsessively"?) ever since. I bet we have a lot of the same ones from bars in Philly, vintage early 90s. Hell, BK, I collect lots of crazy shit. Things even you would be aghast at! Coasters, bottlecaps-- I must have a thousand by now, wondering if I can create a mosaic with them, and which bathroom would be more appropriate for it-- six-pack cartons, business cards, movie stubs, bookmarks (far and wide, 20 years or more worth), beer trays (not so much anymore), and corks from every bottle of wine I've ever opened. I know there's something to "be made" with those corks, and one day I will make it. I will call it our summer house.

Before we moved into our current house I had to keep all these collections hidden away in boxes because there was no space for them. And there was no space for them because of the several thousand books cluttering the otherwise sufficient space I lived in. Now it's all set up in the basement. But I only let fellow crazies down there to look at it all. Price of admission: two ice cold Dogfish IPAs.

Blah blah blah blah. Talk to you later.

[Dan]

I forgot to blab about my postcard collection, of which I am very proud. From the turn of the century up to today, altho the best of them, and greatest quantity of them, are from the turn of the century. Rotographs, streetviews, birds-eye views, etc. The best were made in Germany before WWI and were mass produced. No drinking allowed when these are out.

[BK]

Bill- I did scan them in. Got us one a them newfangled all-in-one printers. Pretty good scanning. Must get out to the barn agin; miss traveling and miss MT (and you cats too).

Dan- Wow. Gotta get me some Dogfish Head and drop on by the house. I'da thought K-'d have done away with those sundries with some sort of paragraph in a prenup.

[Kerrie]

I lived right around the corner from the Brickskeller (23rd & Q, next to the Phillips Collection.) I thought that matchbook looked familiar! Fun post... might inspire me to dig out my matchbook collection.

[Sanjuro]

I used to collect these too (I think I have the exact same Second City matchbook), probably for the same reasons. It's a bit of a mystery to me why the designs on some matchbooks seem so incredibly good and why a restaurant/bar/comedy club would go to the trouble of having someone design them. But there you are. Display has been a problem for me, I'm not quite sure how to show off my favorites.

For some strange reason, I also started collecting cigarette ads from magazines until my Mom put a stop to it (no, not last month, a long time ago).