Slightly OT: Matches

Rob Babcock

Rob Babcock

Joined
Jul 16, 2007
Messages
1,037
Well, I never in a million years thought I'd do this but I just spend $15 on three 250ct boxes of Diamond Strike-Anywhere matches!:eek: Here's the deal...I don't smoke, and really don't have a lot of use for matches. I do like to keep some around the house for emergencies, mostly for lighting candles, stoves, sterno etc for power outages. Generally I have a few lighters around and some UCO matches for hiking and camping.

Now you folks will probably think I've been living in a cave for the last few years, and maybe I have, but I hadn't realized til relatively recently that the good old red-and-white strike-anywhere matches were discontinued in 2010 in favor of "greener" ones that must be struck on the box.:mad: True, you can still get ones that claim to be SA but in my experience they don't work with spit unless you strike on the box. I suppose it's mostly for legal reasons that they made the change but for wilderness/survival use I really like to have matches that can be struck on something besides the box. After all, the box can get wet and the striker rendered useless, and of the strikers can get used up before the matches. My favorite improvised striker is a kydex knife sheath.

Anyone else here rathole away a bunch of matches before they were discontinued?
 
I found Diamond strike anywhere matches on eBay. They have the green heads, though. Both regular and kitchen sized. I prefer the kitchen sized. The regular sized ones are a little delicate. The kitchen matches fire right up when struck on the side of my Marbles match safe.
 
Now even I wish I'd stocked up on them. I have a box or two somewhere but I rarely use matches for anything.:(
 
i have tried the green and the red tips, they both were hit or miss. If you can find them, Ohio blue tip matches were the best. I managed to score a big box at a flea market for a buck!!
 
We apparently aren't responsible enough to handle those demon strike-anywhere matches. I've heard that this related to some sort of safety issue...matches can create fire???? Did not know that! :)

I have two boxes of Ohio Bluetips left. If I see them anywhere, I would pick them up for sure.
 
I haven't seen 'em anywhere for ages so I put 'em out of mind a long time ago.Now you got me wanting some for nostalgias sake.
When I was a kid we would chew on 'em after lighting our smokes for the burnt sulfer taste.
I can still taste it now after all these years,kinda salty........:)
 
I used to buy the OBT matches when I was younger, as you could take a match and if you were good, you could throw it onto the ground and it would light - we had a blast with them.

I used to be able to light one by clicking it with my thumbnail as well -

I never thought about it before, but I guess that would be another dangerous item that would have to be taken away from us..... (sarcasm...)

best

mqqn
 
mykel m said:
I haven't seen 'em anywhere for ages so I put 'em out of mind a long time ago.Now you got me wanting some for nostalgias sake.
When I was a kid we would chew on 'em after lighting our smokes for the burnt sulfer taste.
I can still taste it now after all these years,kinda salty........:)
Click to expand...

Nostalgia is part of it, for sure. For camping I like a firesteel, and I usually have a good lighter and some UCO Stormproof matches. But the old kind of strike-anywhere will light well on kydex, something I usually have along with me.
 
mqqn said:
I used to buy the OBT matches when I was younger, as you could take a match and if you were good, you could throw it onto the ground and it would light - we had a blast with them.

I used to be able to light one by clicking it with my thumbnail as well -

I never thought about it before, but I guess that would be another dangerous item that would have to be taken away from us..... (sarcasm...)

best

mqqn
Click to expand...

We used to throw them, or pump up our pellet rifles with no pellet, put the match in the barrel, and glance them off the pavement at night, pretending we had tracer rounds.
 
JK Knives said:
We used to throw them, or pump up our pellet rifles with no pellet, put the match in the barrel, and glance them off the pavement at night, pretending we had tracer rounds.
Click to expand...

Hmmm.....

May have to test a few if those tracer rounds
 
I had a crazy but fun science teacher in grade school - we had a science club, and on Fridays we would have wars using capillary tubing (glass tube) and wrapping match heads in aluminum foil, and when you would heat them and they lit, they would fly out of the tube like a rocket. We called them match-rockets.

Good fun. I still can't believe we got away with that.

best

mqqn
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top