Tändsticksmuseet

There are only three matchstick museums in the world and one of these is the Matchstick Museum in central Jönköping. It is located on the southern shore of Lake Vättern in a beautiful, listed wooden building dating from 1848.

At the Matchstick Museum you will meet both the people and the machines that built up the matchstick industry and helped develop it into a global company. If you visit the museum with children, there are lots of fun activities, such as looking for hidden giant matches or making your own matchboxes.

The museum features preserved machinery and stories about the workers in the matchstick factory. You can meet the children who played a central role in early matchmaking. In the factory worker’s replica house, you get a sense of what everyday life was like for the workers and their families. Around a third of Jönköping's population, 2,000 people, worked in the matchstick factory at its peak.

The history of matches

The Matchstick Museum is located in the so-called ‘Matchstick Area’ where buildings from the heyday of the industry still exist today. To understand the central importance of the small wooden building, you need to go back to the years 1844-1845. This was when brothers Johan and Carl Lundström started manufacturing matches in Jönköping. The first matchstick, the phosphorous match, contained yellow phosphorus which made these matches flammable but toxic. Workers in the match factories often suffered from phosphorus poisoning. The sale of phosphorus matches was banned in Sweden in 1901, but they were still produced until 1920.

Chemist Gustaf Erik Pasch invented the safety match in 1844. The dangerous yellow phosphorus was replaced by non-toxic red phosphorus, which was struck against a piece of wood to light it. Johan Lundström, a chemist, later improved and further developed Gustaf Erik Pasch's patent. The safety match spread all over the world and became hugely popular. The matches that we use today originate from Jönköping.

The matchstick king Ivar Kreuger

Engineer and financier Ivar Kreuger, also known as the ‘Matchstick King’, built a multinational industrial and financial group in the 1920s. In 1917, he took over all Swedish matchstick factories, including those in Jönköping, and created one single company, STAB (Svenska Tändsticksaktiebolaget). Soon Kreuger had a worldwide monopoly. By 1930, STAB had between 60-70 per cent of global matchstick production.

Matchboxes and labels

Initially, Swedish matchboxes only displayed the factory stamp, but over time the labels became more decorative. They depict everything from famous people such as Stalin and Mahatma Gandhi, to images of machines and vehicles.

Einar Nerman's ‘The Solsticks Boy’ is the world's most depicted work of art. The Solstick match was first sold in 1936 in aid of the disabled, children and the elderly. Originally, half a Swedish cent per box was donated to charity, and today at least eight Swedish cents per box is given. Over SEK 100 million has been raised so far.

Matchstick production today

In Sweden there have been 155 matchstick factories and about 15 factories that produced solely the boxes and labels. Today, there are only two factories; one in Vetlanda that makes matchsticks and matchboxes and one in Tidaholm that finishes the matches off with a match head and then packs them in the boxes. The matchstick is made from aspen, which is durable and burns with a clear and even flame. A single aspen trunk can make up to 370,000 matches. About 95 per cent of Swedish matches are exported to other countries.

In the museum's shop, you can find your favourite design among the many matchboxes and buy other nice gifts.

The Matchstick Museum, which is open all year round, is owned and run by Jönköping municipality.

How to get here