Matchbook collectors near me how to#

And it is, with its own clubs – the oldest, Rathkamp Matchcover Society, going back to 1940. This collector had meticulously kept his or her matchbooks tucked in special plastic sleeves, indicating that this was a serious hobby. Two pages of matchbook covers in their plastic sleeves.

No one makes DeSoto cars anymore (the last was made in 1961) or shop for food as my family once did at the Food Fair grocery chain. The matchbooks at auction had the look of history: the designs were dated, and the places they advertised likely were shuttered decades ago. I never took a matchbook from a place I wanted to forget. I chose matchbooks according to my likes and dislikes. Matchbooks are like a peephole into our individual lives, reminding us of where we’ve been and gossiping to others about what we did while we were there. They told of cities visited (Atlantic City, Carson City, NV), foods eaten (steak, Tastykake), restaurants frequented (Stouffer’s, Little Johnny’s Supper Club), cigarettes smoked (Salem, Newport) and bodies buried (John J. That’s what I found recently on the auction table – a binder of matchbooks in plastic sleeves, page after page of them. A handful of matchbook covers sold at auction, nicely tucked in plastic in a binder. I never thought of my hoard as a collection, but apparently a lot of people do more than just take a few home as souvenirs. That jar of covers disappeared years ago, although I do keep at least one pack with my stash of candles and flashlights for emergency blackouts in my neighborhood. I didn’t smoke but I “collected” them anyway, putting them away in a jar just in case I needed to strike a match.

There was a time when I’d pick up a matchbook or two or three from the counter at every restaurant, night club or café I’d go to.

Matchbook collectors near me how to#

Please read my blog post about how to determine what you have and the market value. “This is just something.I get a lot of requests from readers about the value of their matchbook covers. “She got so excited about this, and I so got excited about this,” Quilling said. Soon, he’ll have a few to add that were created near the shores of Lake Erie by local artists such as Booth, who was thrilled by Quilling’s request. “We have hundreds of three-ring binders in our hobby rooms,” he said. Matchless covers are pressed and stored in three-ring binders. An exception is made when removing the matches will damage the art on the cover or the book includes printed matches called Features. Quilling said that, like many phillumenists, he only collects unstruck matchbooks and usually strips the matches out of the books. and an annual convention that will be held this year in the Cleveland suburb of Westlake on Aug. RMS is still in existence today and consists of 20 regional clubs across the U.S. Quilling said the hobby got its start at the 1939-40 World’s Fair in New York City, which spurred the creation of the Rathkamp Matchcover Society (RMS) in 1941. Across the country, there are hundreds of phillumenists – the official term for matchbook collectors.