A Special Feature: Chicago "Feature" Matchbooks VIDEO!

It may seem a tiny matter, but this is a lost art.

Yes, there are Matcbook collectors (see video below).   
But then there are "Feature Matchook" Collectors.  

What is shown here is a fun sampling of Feature Matchook Commercial Art.   

They are no longer an item you see with much regularity-- Ebay-Etsy, of course.  Of note: Often they are used as props to a vintage jewelry display--  (Always ask if THAT is For Sale!)

However exceptional ones are exceptionally hard to find.  As well they should.

I do miss the precision of vintage die-cut printing.  Try to have these affordably duplicated today.  We have the technology of most human history here in our inventive hands, yet we can't die-cut matches as cheaply as the past could produce.  

Further, and more importantly, the commercial artistry of Feature Matches is an oft neglected little glimpse to all the vintage wonders which can pass us by.

Especially if we're not paying attention due to our present tense.

My special affection for these comes in the misalignments, typos, errors, mistakes in printing, etc.  Something naive about the effort of creating these by the millions, not all of them so perfect.  

I'm sure many a house burned to the ground, the homeowner never knowing how diabolically and graphically clever these Matchbooks were.   Not to mention overly flammable... (a problem I had with Sally all along.)

Just goes to show:  Good, but especially... Bad Design--- can still kill.

Danny Alias  Copyright WDMS, 2011

And yes those were Girly Dancing Legs.   Incredible, right?

As if the naughty, yet wonderful graphics weren't enough...

And ther are so many incredible examples, if you can find them.  Scace.

It is the lost art of affordable precision die-cutting that killed a very stylish industry.  Consider today's matchook... scary!  This is Art.  

Back the bar.  Licking our wounds.  And our salted glasses.

D.A.  Copyright 2011 WDMS