Match is a slender piece of cardboard or wood with a tip made of a chemical mixture that burns easily. Matches are used to produce fire. When the tip is rubbed against a rough or specially prepared surface, the chemicals burst into flame and ignite the match.
India is the world’s leading producer of matches. Brazil, South Africa, and the United States also have large match industries. Matches, which were invented in the early 1800’s, provided the first cheap, convenient method of producing fire.
Kinds of matches
The matches we use today are of two chief types, the strike-anywhere match and the safety match.
Strike-anywhere matches
will light when drawn across any rough surface. They are wooden matches with heads of two colors, usually red and white. The white tip, called the eye, contains the firing substance. It is made chiefly of the chemical preparation, sesquisulfide of phosphorus. The rest of the bulblike head will not fire if struck, but will burn after the flaming eye sets it afire. It is larger around than the eye. This protects the matches from setting fire to each other by friction when they are packed into a box. When the match is lighted, the paraffin in which the matchstick had been dipped carries the flame from the head to the wood part.
Safety matches
can be lighted only by striking them across a special surface, usually on the side of the box in which they are contained. The match head is made of a substance containing chlorate of potash. The striking surface is made of a compound of red phosphorus and sand. Book matches are a type of safety match made of paper and bound into a folding paper cover. The striking surface is on the outside back of the cover.
Matches can be dangerous
Many disastrous fires and hundreds of deaths have been caused by the careless use of matches. All kinds of matches should be stored where children cannot reach them. Strike-anywhere matches should be placed out of the reach of mice. Rats or mice can set off matches by gnawing at the striking heads. A match should not be thrown away until the flame is out. Even then, it should be placed in a metal or other fire-resistant container.
How matches are made
Wooden matches
are made by complex automatic machines that can manufacture and package more than a million matches an hour. First, a machine cuts splints (matchsticks) from thin strips of poplar wood. The splints are processed through an anti-afterglow solution, which prevents embers from forming after a match is blown out. Then the splints are dried and put into a matchmaking machine.
The matchmaking machine puts the splints into small holes in a belt of metal plates. As the belt fills up with splints, it dips them into a series of chemicals. The splints are first dipped into paraffin, which provides a base that carries the flame from the match head to the wood. The belt also passes the splints through a chemical mixture that forms the bulbs and eyes of the matches. The heads may also receive a final chemical coating that protects them from moisture in the air. The finished matches are then punched from their plates, counted, and boxed in one automatic operation.
Book matches
are made by two machines from rolls of heavy paper called paperboard that has been treated with an anti-afterglow solution. The first machine, called a match machine, cuts the paperboard into combs (strips). Each comb is divided into from 60 to 120 smaller strips. These smaller strips eventually become matches. The machine dips the combs into paraffin and then dips the tips of the combs into the match-head solution.
Next, the combs are loaded into a booking, or stitching, machine. This machine cuts the combs into the size of an individual matchbook. It also fits them into printed covers. Finally, the machine staples the combs and the covers together to form the finished matchbooks, and workers pack the matchbooks into boxes.
Collecting matchbook covers
Collecting matchbook covers is an interesting and enjoyable hobby shared by thousands of persons. Match hobbyists collect covers from places they visit, trade covers with other collectors, and even buy rare or unusual covers from hobby shops or through advertisements in hobby magazines. Some match covers have become valuable because of their rarity.
Matchbook collectors are called phillumenists, which means lovers of light. They often form clubs to help them trade covers and meet fellow hobbyists. The clubs hold meetings and conduct contests that award prizes to the best collections. Several clubs are organized on a nationwide basis.
Because of the great variety of matchbook covers, collectors classify them in order to store or display them more easily. Collectors often specialize in certain kinds, such as covers from hotels, railroads, and government organizations. Covers can also be classified by size. Most collectors prefer covers that have not been used. However, collectors will often keep a used cover until they can find an unused one to replace it in their collections.
Collectors usually store covers in albums which they buy from hobby shops or make themselves. A matchbook album should have slots to hold the covers. A cover that is pasted in an album loses its value.
History
Early fire-making devices
were developed as scientists learned of chemical reactions that produced fire. In 1780, a group of French chemists invented the phosphoric candle, or ethereal match, a sealed glass tube containing a twist of paper. The paper was tipped with a form of phosphorus that burned upon exposure to oxygen. When a person broke the tube, air ignited the phosphorus. This and other early fire-producing devices were dangerous because of the poisonous fumes and extreme flammability of phosphorus.
The first matches
resembling those of today appeared in 1827, when John Walker, an English pharmacist, began to make and sell congreves. A congreve was a splint 3 inches (8 centimeters) long, tipped with antimony sulfide, chlorate of potash, gum arabic, and starch. A person lit one by drawing it through a fold of sandpaper. The match burst into flame with a series of small explosions that showered the user with sparks.
Charles Sauria, a French chemistry student, produced the first strike-anywhere match in the early 1830’s. The match tip included phosphorus. Alonzo D. Phillips of Springfield, Mass., patented the first phosphorus matches in the United States in 1836. He made the matches by hand and sold them from door to door.
Neither Sauria nor Phillips knew that fumes from their phosphorus matches could cause a deadly disease called necrosis of the jaw, or phossy jaw. But after match factories began to operate during the mid-1800’s, a number of workers who were exposed to phosphorus fumes died from the disease. As the match industry grew, the threat of widespread necrosis became alarming. In 1900, the Diamond Match Company purchased a French patent for matches with a striking head of sesquisulfide of phosphorus, a nonpoisonous compound. But the French formula would not work in the United States because of the difference in climate.
In 1910, as a result of the spread of necrosis, the United States placed such a high tax on phosphorus matches that the match industry faced extinction. In 1911, William A. Fairburn, a young engineer, solved the problem by adapting the French formula for sesquisulfide of phosphorus to the climate of the United States. The threat of necrosis ended.
The first safety matches
were invented by Gustave E. Pasch, a Swedish chemist, in 1844. John Lundstrom, a Swedish manufacturer, began to produce them in large quantities in 1852.
The match industry centered in Sweden for many years. In the early 1900’s, Ivar Kreuger, a Swedish promoter, formed the Swedish Match Company, a giant international match empire that owned factories, forests, and mines. The company operated match factories in about 40 countries and made most of the world’s matches. The stock market crash of 1929 weakened Kreuger’s influence, and he committed suicide in 1932. But the Swedish Match Company survived the crash and operated successfully under new management.
The invention of book matches.
Joshua Pusey, a Philadelphia attorney, patented the first book matches in 1892. He called them flexible matches. Pusey made his matches in packages of 50. The striking surface was on the inside cover, dangerously near the heads of the matches. Because of this, book matches did not become popular until World War I (1914-1918). By that time, the Diamond Match Company had purchased Pusey’s patent and made book matches safe and usable.
During World War II (1939-1945), when the United States Army had to fight the Japanese in areas where long rainy seasons prevailed, the match industry was called upon to produce a waterproof match. In 1943, Raymond D. Cady, a chemist with the Diamond Match Company, produced a formula which protected wooden matches so well that they would light after eight hours under water. This waterproof match is coated with a water- and heat-resistant substance. The substance does not interfere with the creation of enough friction to light the match.
