Last of Japan-made matchbooks to end production this month

There was a time when strolling into nearly any workplace equivalent to a restaurant or resort, you’d be greeted by a bowl filled with little paper folders containing a row, or rows, of flammable tipped sticks. Helpful for just about all of your fire-based wants, these matchbooks had been as soon as a good way for firms so as to add a bit of delicate promoting into your life.

▼ They had been additionally nice plot units in motion pictures.

However it simply dawned on me that I in all probability haven’t seen a matchbook in nicely over a decade no less than. They only appeared to fade so subtly over time that it largely went unnoticed. In truth, the one purpose it got here to my consideration was a current tweet by Japanese match producer Nittosha.

▼ “The books of matches that we’ve made for about 49 years might be discontinued on the finish of the orders acquired in June. And with that, the sunshine for making matchbooks might be extinguished from Japan… Thanks for utilizing them at numerous outlets as low-cost, straightforward to hold methods for dependable promoting. It feels fairly lonely…”

At first it could sound like Nittosha is being overly melodramatic, however their ardour for matches would possibly make extra sense in historic context. Within the latter half of the nineteenth century, simply as Japan’s Meiji Restoration was gaining momentum and numerous cultural imports had been coming into the nation, matches turned an enormous enterprise. Manufacturing amenities had been arrange largely in Hyogo Prefecture, the place Nittosha was additionally based in 1923.

By the primary half of the twentieth century, Japan had grown into one of many greatest exporter of matches on the planet, together with the USA and Sweden. Nonetheless, following World Conflict II, the usage of matches started to present strategy to lighters for particular person customers.

Matches had been removed from giving up although, and producers right here adopted the American growth of the matchbook, giving the trade a serious increase with a brand new promotional merchandise that each one sorts of companies would purchase in bulk. This continued till 1973, when match gross sales in Japan had been stated to have peaked. After that, the arrival of disposable lighters started to eat away on the transportable hearth market share yr after yr, and match have reportedly plummeted 99 p.c because the high-water mark in ’73.

It’s comprehensible, although, for Nittosha to nonetheless maintain a match-lit candle for the fond recollections of when matches had been a serious a part of the Japanese financial system, and the excellent news is that this isn’t the tip for them. Though they’ve discontinued matchbooks, they are going to nonetheless produce matches in different sorts of packaging which nonetheless have their makes use of, particularly as part of catastrophe kits.

Security matches bought in packing containers are nonetheless extensively used for lighting ceremonies equivalent to funerals and memorials.

There’s additionally an opportunity that somebody would possibly import matchbooks to Japan, however that can probably be a rarity. So, should you occur to have a Japanese matchbook, take excellent care of it, as a result of it’s very quickly to be historical past.

Supply: Day by day Shincho

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