Amazing Matchbook Art Collection

August 21, 2006 12:14 AM

The Match World Virtual Museum is dedicated to showcasing the best artwork from the ~25,000 matchbooks in the collection of the Japanese Match Manufacturers Association, including Foreign Matchbooks, Advertising on Matchbooks and various matchbook companies, all with decent, sized images available if you click on the thumbnail versions. Some really attractive stuff in here. Previously on Metafilter
posted by jonson (8 comments total)

I'm not sure, but I think I like the Animals category under Company Brand Matches best of all. This brave frog offers protection from fire, as well as from the feline faced bat creature he's crushing underfoot. Meanwhile this book is, unbelievably, an exact depiction of the lyrics from Rush's epic By-Tor & the Snow Dog. Finally, this guy may be familiar to those of you who visit less erudite community blogs where people are prone to posting inline images.
posted by jonson at 12:15 AM on August 21, 2006

You broke his site!
posted by bigmusic at 12:41 AM on August 21, 2006

D'oh! I had meant to have the word "here" in my post above link to this awesome King Kong one, but I screwed up and now my post is ruined. Also, speaking of Kong, I'm not sure what monkey is the most daring from among this collection, but it's either this gravity defying hang-gliding monkey, or this ferocious aquatic monkey, who dares battle the deadly monkey-eating octopus.
posted by jonson at 12:43 AM on August 21, 2006

bigmusic - are you sure? Site still loads for me...
posted by jonson at 12:43 AM on August 21, 2006

A few of the links to the image pages are borked in Opera and FF. As in they just load the code. It's his fault, not yours.
posted by bigmusic at 12:50 AM on August 21, 2006

Yes, problems in Safari too.

Beautiful site, the Museum. Thanks for a wonderful post!
posted by flapjax at midnite at 12:54 AM on August 21, 2006

Yeah, all the links in the post from "decent sized images" on just show a page of code in Firefox, and all of the links to individual matchbooks in your comments, jonson, do the same. Except for King Kong, which just goes to show King Kong rules.
posted by mediareport at 4:44 AM on August 21, 2006

Loved this beautiful site jonson. Thank you.

I really enjoy matchboxes and old wooden matches, especially those from Asia. Each match has its own character, they're different subtle colors and I enjoy the sound as they rattle in the box. Here's a list of collectors from around the world.

PHILLUMENY is the hobby of PHILLUMENISTS. Phillumenists collect matchbox labels, skillets, matchboxes, matchbook covers, matchbooks, and other forms of match packaging as well as match strikers, match holders, matchbox holders and matchbook holders.
posted by nickyskye at 2:18 PM on August 21, 2006