Collecting and Displaying Matchbook Covers
If you are looking for an interesting yet easy hobby, collecting matchbook covers can actually be quite rewarding and provide a story of places you have been to in your town as well as on your travels. You can collect either the foldover covers, or those that have little drawers that slide out, or even both. By having a variety of shapes and styles of matchbook covers, you can create an interesting collection that others will ask about and learn from.
Properly known as phillumeny, one of the easiest ways to start a matchbook collection is to eat out at your favorite restaurants. Many franchise and independent restaurants have matchbooks available to visitors as a way of advertising their business. So you can not only get a good meal, but a nice little addition to your collection for each restaurant you visit. Most of these restaurants also have address and phone information that provide a nice little souvenir for visitors. Another great place to obtain matchbooks is through hotels whenever you go traveling on the road. Hotels, like restaurants, are more than happy to advertise their businesses to others. Should a friend admiring your collection ask for any recommendations of where to eat or stay during a vacation, you can then tell them the best places you have been, showing them the matchbook covers containing the pertinent information being asked for. Other viable places to obtain matchbooks with decorations and advertising on the covers include: banks, political campaigns, museums, charity organizations, and social clubs. Ask your friends and family to help scour different places for matchbooks. Don’t leave out the possibility of yard sales and flea markets, where you can find older matchbooks to add to your collection. As for condition, when you collect those matchbooks that are not available from firsthand sources, check to make sure the paper edges are not torn, and that all of the matches are still inside. This will actually raise the value of the matchbooks over the years.
When it comes to displaying your collection, there are several ways that you can have them in one case or container for visual purposes. One of my favorites is using a large clear glass jar with a very wide mouth. Just toss in your matchbook covers, shake up the jar a little bit so that some matchbook covers are visible on the sides of the glass, and it is ready for display. Another great way to display them is on a plastic container on a shelf or table. Plastic is not the best thing to use though, as it can give off gases that may harm the paper covers. You will want to preserve and conserve your matchbook collection for as long as possible, so use a container that is acid free for displaying your collection.
Image Credit: AlejandroLinaresGarcia, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
