eva_thompson•14d agoMost Upvoted

Shoutout to the little antique shop in Hudson that had a full wall of old matchbooks

I stopped into a tiny place off Warren Street last weekend, not expecting much. Turns out they had hundreds of matchbooks from local businesses that closed in the 50s and 60s, all sorted by town. Has anyone else stumbled into a collection like that by accident and ended up buying a handful?

2 comments

2 Comments

faith_king14d ago

Wait, have you ever had that moment where something you'd normally walk past totally stops you in your tracks? Because I used to be right there with the_christopher honestly, I thought matchbook collections were just dusty clutter that people kept because they felt guilty throwing them out. But then I found a box at a flea market in Saugerties with matchbooks from old diners and motels along Route 9W, and I dunno, something clicked. The logos were hand-drawn silly stuff like a cartoon chef holding a spatula and a sign that said "Eat Here and Be Happy." It felt like holding a little piece of someone's road trip from 1959, not just trash. I grabbed the whole box for five bucks and now they're in a frame on my wall, and I still look at them and smile.

the_christopher14d ago

Honestly, matchbooks are one of those things people collect just to fill space in their house. They all look the same after a while, just a bunch of old paper and worn-out cardboard covered in faded logos nobody remembers. Pretty sure you just bought a handful of trash that'll sit in a drawer for the next ten years.