by Bill Retskin

It didn't take long, after the invention of the book match to find a popular use for them. Around the turn of the century, America could definitely be called a cigar smoking country. It is rumored that in 1906, at least six million cigar smokers and more, smoked over six million different cigar brands.

The plethora of brand names, however, centered on the popularity of the proud and personal identification men had with cigars. Every businessman, banker or entrepreneur could have his own cigar band placed on a cigar when ordered in prescribed numbers.

Although the tobacco in hundreds of these "different" cigars brands may have been rolled by the same cigar factory workers, just about anyone with the resource could boast that he was smoking his own private leaf.

Despite the lack of proper air conditioning and architecturally poor ventilated rooms, cigar smoke was the predominant aroma in meeting rooms, convention halls and back room poker games all over America. As with certain talk-show hosts of today, American men smoked 20 to 30 cigars daily. It probably took lots of automobile fumes to out-pollute an early American street.

The American book match followed closely behind. After numerous early experiments, the proper length for the paper match stick was determined, giving the cigar smoker just enough flame to properly light his cigar. The size of the match book itself was about 1/4 inch longer than today's standard match book and the 20-strike standard developed during WWII. Today's matchcover collectors commonly call those older matchcovers, "tall."

Hidden beneath the muster of the era, cigarettes were becoming popular. Makers found them easier and quicker to manufacture, and by placing 10 in a package (later 20), they would sell less tobacco for more money. The Suffragette movement of the period announced women smokers, many of who found it difficult to manipulate a 42 to 54 ring size cigar popular among male smokers of the period. Cigarettes also gave a clean look to smoking, insofar as the paper surrounding the tobacco was white.

The battle must have raged for years between cigars and cigarettes, the latter concocting its name by adding the feminine suffix to the word cigar, or cigarette.

Although World War I could have ushered in the changing factor in making America a cigarette smoking nation, it wasn't until the Second World War that cigarette makers saw the light.

Offering millions of free cartons of cigarettes to service men in both the European and Asian theatres, American cigarette manufacturers were indoctrinating their own sales force for the cigarette-smoking nation after the war. Returning soldiers, now preferring cigarettes, demanded the popular smoking form in the States. Fashion also dictated a smaller and quicker smoke, as the war years of the 1940s folded into the prosperous generation of the 1950s.

The match book industry and the common paper match had two marketing problems for their designers. First, it now took less flame to light a cigarette than it did to light a cigar. With cigars losing popularity to cigarettes, a decidedly smaller match stick could be used, thus saving production time and money. In addition to this pressure, the cigarette vending machine was becoming popular, and could now be found in every bar, restaurant, hotel, banks and business in an ever-expanding cigarette-smoking America. Along with the cigarette vending machine came the vended match book to accompany each pack of cigarettes.

In the late 1930s, Ohio Match Co. became the first match book maker to experiment with the shorter match. In fact, they took out several patents on the vending equipment needed to dispense the shorter match book along with cigarettes. Match book dispensing machines were already passé and with the immediate popularity of vending machine cigarettes, Ohio Match Co. had the market locked up for a short period of time. Eventually, other designs were invented and match book companies entered the market. The tall match book, so popular prior to WWI, was quickly fading from view.

Penny boxes, popular in Europe, and kitchen matches, used for lighting fire places and wood stoves, were still available for the inveterate cigar smoker, but these portable lights had to be obtained or purchased from cigar stores or tobacco vendors.

Even with the recent resurgence and popularity of cigar smoking, the tall match book never saw a comeback. Designer matches have become the popular rage. World War II, and the popularity of cigarettes, therefore, ended the period of the tall match book forever.

Today, tall match books and matchcovers are scarce. Several match book companies made them throughout the 1920s and 1930s, including Federal Match Co., Star Match Co., Universal Match Corp., Union Match Co., and Diamond Match Co. They are sought after by serious collectors and can be found in many mature collections.