- Phillumeny
Phillumeny is the
hobby ofcollecting differentmatch -related items:matchbox es, matchbox labels,matchbook s,matchcover s, matchsafes, etc.Etymology
The word was introduced by the British collector Marjorie S. Evans in 1943 (at the time - the president of The British Matchbox Label & Booklet Society). A person who engages in phillumeny is a "phillumenist". These two forms have been adopted by many other languages, e.g., "philuméniste", "fillumenista", "Filumenist" and филуменист. For some time (from the mid 1940s into the 1950s) parallel to Phillumeny there was in use the term "Phillumenism", which is now out of use.
Phillumeny worldwide
Collecting of matchbox labels emerged together with matches. In some collections it is possible to find labels from chemical matches, produced in 1810—1815 - long before the modern matches arrived. Quite often people who went abroad brought back matchboxes as souvenirs from other countries. After
World War II a lot of match factories worked in close contact with local phillumenists, issuing special non-advertising sets. The hobby became especially widespread from the 1960s through the 1980s. Widespread introduction of bulky (for collectors) cardboard matchboxes with less distinct images on them, much poorer quality of print and, also some social phenomena, made this hobby (like many others, not connected with commerce) much less engaged.Use of the Internet, allowing enthusiasts scattered around the world to cooperate, seems to have raised the level of interest again. For example, if in 1998 there were only 7 sites, more or less dedicated to phillumeny. In 2007 there were nearly 100 of them and the number is still growing.
Famous phillumenists
In
Japan , Teichi Yoshizawa was listed in theGuinness Book of World Records as the world's top phillumenist. InPortugal , Jose Manuel Pereira published a series of albums to catalog and display matchbox collections called "Phillalbum".ee also
*
List of hobbies External links
* [http://phillumeny.net Phillumeny portal]
* [http://phillumeny.onego.ru Virtual Matchbox Labels Museum]
* [http://www.phillumeny.com British Matchbox Label and Booklet Society]
* [http://www.matchboxlabels.com Phillumeny online]
* [http://www.phillumeny.com/html/glossary.html#P Glossary of phillumeny]
* [http://www.geocities.com/yecheal/ The Yecheal Biskovitz Matchbox Labels Collection]
* [http://www.matchboxlabels.org / The Home of Phillumeny]
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