It has occurred to me that I have been collecting stories about matchcovers. Some are ordinary; a couple might be dramatic, but I would like to believe that all are in some measure, interesting. They are interesting to me, and that seems to be my validation for what will follow!

I am a matchcover collector. I have tens of thousands, only a few of which are properly organized. The rest sit in boxes, and as I process them through my fingers, occasionally questions arise: “Was this. place famous?“ “Whose name is this and does it have significance?“. “Is there really a story behind this match cover?” When I investigate, sometimes valid information is hard to find, but then – on another search, a story emerges!

Other than physically saving them in some manne por other, probably in an album, it suddenly occurred to me that my WordPress has been dormant for several years. This site started out as stories of travels when I thought the travelling would go on forever

It did not.

So it seems that this might be a repository for the stories, behind the words and pictures on what is really little more than a thin strip of cardboard. But these little strips of cardboard collectively tell the story of America; the story of Canada, and to some lesser extent as available to me, stories of the world.

So if this works, you may start to find on occasion a picture of a match cover (maybe occasionally a full book of matches, but rarely, I think) and what story I can find behind it. On paper, I edit each story to fit. Hey single sheet of standard letter size paper. I may have to adjust the margins to get it all in, but those are the stories you will find here, written first for print. And physical saving them for this page….

The Matchcover Storyteller