Strike anywhere matches

[eldonkr]

I'm a bit of an odd fellow, enjoying accouterments from days long passed. As such I enjoy lighting my cigarettes with zippo lighters or matches. I've been using matches a lot lately and I've always wanted to pull a match from my hatband and strike it along a brick wall, my shoe, the beard stubble of someone I didn't like and light my smoke. But I seem to be unable to find any kind of strike anywhere matches at my local store.

Anyone know why this is, and where is a good place to look for them?

 

[adamjaskie]

While a bit harder to find than strike-on-box matches, I'm usually able to find them in most grocery stores. You might try a shop that sells camping equipment.

 

[BellyTank]

Army Surplus, Camping, OR an Old West/Civil War suttler.

I found them in Copenhagen ant a Surplus store.

They were called "Cowboy Matches" and made in Germany...


B
T

 

[rikrdo]

HERE's some.......

 

[Shaul-Ike Cohen]

I think it simply depends on legality. When they're illegal in your country, you'll have to order them from abroad, which might or might not be legal. In countries where they're allowed, you step into the next tobacco store and find plenty of 'em.

 

[SamMarlowPI]

Safeway...household products...use 'em to light my cigars n pipe...carry 'em in one of those match safes with the striker on the bottom...like Gene Hackman in Quick and the Dead...

 

[DerMann]

Strike anywhere matches are still manufactured and sold in the US. Their box is usually blue as opposed to the standard red.

As a note, you won't be able to buy "real" strike anywhere matches, as those were banned quite a while back. For one, they were unstable (liable to burst into flames if you jostled them wrong), and secondly, they would cause some sort of jaw disease. Both problems were caused by white phosphorus, the most evil concoction ever made.

I've looked for a while, and unless you make your own, you're going to have to settle for the safer modern strike anywheres.

 

[Jay]

Last time I looked for them I could only find the ones with the white tips. Did the blue-tip jobs go out of production or something?

 

[Rockapin-up]

I bought some at my local OSH store... The white tipped ones.

 

[shortbow]

Ah, it is with fond memories of a mis-spent youth that I remember Ohio Blue Tips. They were some explosive, worked great out of a match gun which we made out of clothes pins, and they lit up fine when fired out of a Daisy. That was down in the Southwest in the sixties. Didn't know they had stopped making them. Up here in the Far Frozen, we can still get strike-anywheres, luckily I live in a tiny wilderness burg where most work and play in the bush. BUT, they sure are wimpy compared to those old evil little wooden toys of childhood. Gotta be absolutely sure to keep them super dry, and still ya get lots of duds. BTW, you ain't odd, you're just one of us.

 

[SamMarlowPI]

no wonder clint eastwood could light 'em with his thumbnail and i can only light 'em with a rock or brick or something...stupid modern world...

 

[Jay]

no wonder clint eastwood could light 'em with his thumbnail and i can only light 'em with a rock or brick or something...stupid modern world...

So it's not just me? I got sick of trying after too many broken thumbnails.

 

[Real Swell Gal]

I think it simply depends on legality. When they're illegal in your country, you'll have to order them from abroad, which might or might not be legal. In countries where they're allowed, you step into the next tobacco store and find plenty of 'em.

It can also go from state to state because meth chemists use them to make meth amphetamine.

 

[John in Covina]

Actually the white tip can be used to make explosives and detinators for other explosives.

The Diamond brand can often be found at the supermarket but the real find is to come across "Ohio Blue Tip" matches that is a well known, and venerable, old brand.

 

[John in Covina]

White tips when fresh and dry and having a "big" white tip can be lit with a thumbnail. It is a combination of pressure and friction, hold in hand and place thumbnail on white tip portion just above red section. Move nail long ways across white tip pressing pretty hard in a one way saw like motion.

Tuff part is getting the tip to break off and lodge under nail while igniting, that smarts!:eusa_doh:

 

[Jay]

White tips when fresh and dry and having a "big" white tip can be lit with a thumbnail. It is a combination of pressure and friction, hold in hand and place thumbnail on white tip portion just above red section. Move nail long ways across white tip pressing pretty hard in a one way saw like motion.

Tuff part is getting the tip to break off and lodge under nail while igniting, that smarts!:eusa_doh:

So that's the trick. Thanks John.

Now if only I could do that two-fingered whistle thing...

 

[SamMarlowPI]

i actually got a 'pop'...i'll get it one of these days...

 

[MPicciotto]

To waterproof your matches dip the heads in melted wax.

Matt

 

[David Conwill]

As a note, you won't be able to buy "real" strike anywhere matches. . . . they would cause some sort of jaw disease.

That disease is Phossy Jaw. It ruined the lives of a lot of match factory workers:

Essentially your jawbone turns to mush.

-Dave

 

[eldonkr]

. BTW, you ain't odd, you're just one of us.

I'd have to say that's the nicest thing I've ever heard from someone on a forum.

I'll try looking a little harder. The Walmart didn't have them, that just leaves two other places to look in town before looking on line.

I'd actually like to learn to do the two handed whistle thing as well.

on a different note, what causes Phossy Jaw, how can matches do that?