These are just some of the Berkshire-based businesses that produced matchbooks, that columnist Jim Shulman collected.

These matchbooks collected by columnist Jim Shulman show off various Berkshire eateries.

These matchbooks show off artwork on the matches themselves.

In addition to restaurants, banks also handed out matchbooks.

These are just some of the Berkshire-based businesses that produced matchbooks, that columnist Jim Shulman collected.

I was an amateur phillumenist long before I ever heard of the term. Sounds ominous, but it refers to being a matchbook collector, and the hobby is called phillumeny. The name was coined in 1943 and derived from the Greek words meaning “love of light.” Matchbooks were my very first collecting hobby, beginning in the early 1950s. I still have my collection, but I rarely collect anything anymore and just enjoy past collections. I do admit that on occasion someone will send me a matchbook from the Berkshires, a relic from a family business of yore, and I add it to the collection.

My matchbooks mostly focused on Berkshire businesses and also places that we visited on family outings and vacations. I began collecting when my grandfather was a salesman for the Match Corporation of America, a popular advertising matchbook maker. Every few years in the 1950s when the company’s samples were updated, my grandfather gave me his old samples and the catalogues with scores of unfolded covers (without the matches). Although the samples were for businesses from all over the country, I was most interested in the Berkshires. For true phillumenists, these samples, called flats, are not considered real covers. But I was fine being an amateur collector and the instant collection inspired me to pursue a Berkshires theme in finding matchbooks.

Matchbook covers from long-gone businesses have become a sort of historic lesson of Berkshire County. When I was a youngster, my grandfather took me on many of his sales call follow-ups. I got to go to several businesses that were closed by the time I was old enough to drive to them. A few I recall were the Hub restaurant on North Street, Dopey’s eatery in Lanesborough and the Ruby Inn in New Lebanon. My growing collection of matchbooks included covers from local restaurants, retail businesses, gas stations, banks, political ads and service organizations. I remember the Lenox House Restaurant had the first matchbook I saw with the strike pad on its reverse side. The owner of the restaurant pointed out that when you close the cover before striking (as printed on matchbooks), you then have to turn it over to light the match. His point was that the user gets to see the back side, which increases the advertising power of the matchbook.

These matchbooks collected by columnist Jim Shulman show off various Berkshire eateries.

Like 95 percent of matchbook collectors, I carefully removed the matches and just kept the covers from items I collected. I put the covers in plastic sleeves with small pockets and store them for easy keeping in three-ring binders. Over the years I found a variety of items, including oversize matchbooks with as many as 240 matches, which is twelve times the size of the standard book of 20 matches. (The latter were geared to the number of cigarettes in a package). Some books were unusual shapes, like rounded, and others had pictures on the matches, e.g., the Berkshire Restaurant had matches with a lobster pictured on them.

I recall most cigarette vending machines gave a match book with each cigarette pack. Often these matchbooks had ads for art schools or some other national product. A common one was “Draw Me” with a person’s profile picture and you could send in to a company for art lessons which would end up costing. My favorite vending-machine-distributed matches were advertisements for Hunt’s Ketchup with recipes in the inside. I amassed a number of these and tried the recipes. They served as my first “cookbook” in my college days.

Matchbooks, or folders, were first invented in 1889 by an attorney named Joshua Pusey. Previously, matches were the wooden stick type in a box with a striker surface. Pusey was a cigar smoker, and carrying around a box of matches was inconvenient. He developed the matchbook with paper matches and the strike pad inside, but it did not catch on right away. Another inventor named Charles Bowman developed a similar patent, which was much closer to the standard matchbook of today. In 1897 Pusey sold his patent and rights to the Diamond Match Co. for $4,000. By the mid-19th century Diamond became the largest producer of matches in the U.S. and eventually had plants in six states, including one in Springfield. Several other companies were in or entered the marketplace, competing with a variety of attractive and dazzling covers and designs.

These matchbooks show off artwork on the matches themselves.

By the 1940s and 1950s match companies had reached their peak production of matchbooks in this country. In one year an estimated 12.5 billion matchbooks were produced. But by the 1960s the use of matchbooks began to decline largely due to the popularity of disposable cigarette lighters. Over the next couple of decades, the introduction of anti-smoking health campaigns, high labor costs and overseas competition resulted in the near-collapse of the nation’s match industry and its production of advertising matchbooks.

Today, matchbooks are still produced, especially for promotional and private events like weddings — but not like during the early baby boomer years. As a result of limited production and distribution of matchbooks coupled with younger generations of non-collectors, the phillumeny hobby has challenges.

To keep the interest up in the hobby, there have been a number of worldwide organizations for matchbook collectors with about 30 clubs in the U.S. and Canada. The largest is the Rathkamp Matchcover Society that has been around for over 80 years. This organization has conventions with exhibits, swap-fests, seminars, auctions, dealer tables, trading rules and awards. In fact, the annual convention in Ohio ends this weekend (Aug. 22).

I won’t be attending the convention, but do enjoy viewing my collection of past Berkshire businesses that I remember. The matchbooks will often provide me the impetus for another story about a business. The nice thing I found in my matchbook collecting was that it virtually did not cost anything, there were no rules for collecting, it was educational and it did not take up much space.

In addition to restaurants, banks also handed out matchbooks.

Jim Shulman, a Pittsfield native living in Ohio, is the author of “Berkshire Memories: A Baby Boomer Looks Back at Growing Up in Pittsfield.” If you have a memory of a Berkshire baby-boom landmark, business or event you’d like to share or read about, please write Jim at jesjmskali@aol.com.

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