![]() ![]() "My friend, said, 'Your dad was in the Navy? What year, what ship was he on?' Then he went into his collection and he had a matchcover from that ship which he gave the guy, who was just speechless. He and a fellow collector met a man at an event, who mentioned his father was in the Navy during World War II. ![]() "Most collectors have a reason they collect, whether it's a memory from their youth, or a connection to a product or place," he said. That personal connection is what gets most collectors going. Bicentennial in 1976.Įadie has 25,000 different hotel matchcovers, a reflection of his early travels with his family. Most collectors, Eadie said, have a niche: Some collect wedding matchcovers (the goal is to find a pack that corresponds with every date of the year) others collect specific genres, such as Howard Johnson restaurants matchcovers, or those issued during the U.S. A Family Affair Klein, his mother and his girlfriend all have eBay stores that sell matchbooks and other rare paper collectibles. "I've been to 43 of the last 50 conventions, and haven't missed one in 36 years," he said. The Rathkamp Matchcover Society just marked its 79th annual convention in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Members come from around the U.S., Canada and abroad. Today, there are over 9,000 members, including Eadie. The society was founded in 1939 by a group of enthusiastic matchcover collectors in New York City. ![]() Some early matchcover designs were simple pen-and-ink sketches while later versions included matchsticks manufactured to look like people, or skis, or oil dipsticks.īack in the '60s, to organize his burgeoning collection, Eadie sent away for a binder and inside found a card that led him to the Rathkamp Matchcover Society. "Products, airlines, churches, banks there are matchcovers created for political campaigns, and sporting events." There's a series advertising The Watergate Hotel and another for the 1939 Olympics.Įadie, the former senior vice president of the Magazine Publishers of America, also views them as art. "Everything was advertised on matchcovers," he explained. Some may view matchcovers as worthless pieces of paper - although they do hold a distinction as a receptacle for the four most printed words in the English language: "Close cover before striking" - but in Eadie's view, they are a historical, cultural and political record of life in the U.S. ![]()
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