HISTORY REVEALED.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 268, 13 November 1933, Page 6

HISTORY REVEALED.

ON A MATCH-BOX TOP. (By H.H.) Noticing an entire window full of matchbox tops displayed 111 a sliop in 0110 of our southern suburbs, the reporter entered. He thought there might be a "story" in it, but never dreamed, there might also be history in it. "Since nineteen-sixteen," the man behind the counter replied, when asked how long he had been collecting. He then produced his collection of varieties. The reporter's attention was arrested by a frayed specimen bearing the picture of a burning torch over the letters U.SjS.R. "That one," said tho collector, "I pickcd up at the relief of Archangel in 1919. 1 was with the Russian relief forces. After the defeat of the Bolsdieviks a match from that box was used by a Royalist priest to light candles at the Lady Altar for a Mass 011 behalf of the relieving Imperial Force. This one," lie continued, indicating a design in red, white and blue, bearing the inscription "Best British Front Line Matches," "was issued to me on the Somnie, and hero is a specimen of the matches issued to Canal Zone employees at Panama." And right enough, the inscription "Commissary Division, UjS. Government" was on the box. With all the eagerness of the expert, he went on to explain the meanings of a score of others. How many of us knew, for instance, that the "Templevane" match recently 011 the market here was "struck" in honour of Templevane, the English engineer who designed the huge liydro-electric dam built under the Five Year Plan? Or that the Polish "Fanlight" match was "struck" to commemorate the lirst Esthonian Parliament which opened in a, new building that had no artificial illumination, but was lighted entirely by a series of huge fanlights? He pointed'out a match made in Belgium during the War which evidently owed its name to the presence in Belgium of the Australians. It was called tho "Botiza." New Zealand, too, is represented in this collection by an unusually Well-engraved design "The Maori," which shows a wahine boiling food in a hot pool. Strange to say, this design jmanates from Japan. Perhaps tho most irtistic design is the special match issued in England recently to commemorate the regatta it Cowes. It was evident from this gentlenan's information that there are coveted rarities in the match-box top world even as :here are in philately. "When a man tells you he las a gpod collection ask him to show vott lis 'Coronation of Queen Victoria,' his 'Dianond Jubilee,' or, most of all, his 'Edith . 3aveil,'" he said. This latter design, issued )j Germany, was 'banned in England and France, and is now the rarest and most sought 1 ifter of match-box tops. Design.* bearing the i 11-starred name of Kreuger are now also at j 1 premium. And so it came about in this man- | ler that a reporter learned that the beauty j )f a match-box top lies in more than meets j; .lie eye. j: