Phillumeny: One nation’s love affair with matchbooks

In Japan, matchboxes were a mainstay of daily, vernacular culture. Safety matches became important staples in part because they satisfied a primal social need (fire), and because of the nation’s substantial lumber industry that supplied a near endless supply of material. 

The largest Japanese match manufacturers, including Shungen & Co., Mitsui & Co., Seiryukwan, and Koyoukan Binnaka Seizo, from Osaka, Koshi, and Himeji, were all well known, but the artists ....

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