Are matchboxes worth collecting?

TikTok is reigniting a spark for matchbox collecting. Is there any value in phillumeny or will it fizzle out?

Matchbox collector in Turkiye's Konya
(Image credit: Serhat Cetinkaya/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

Given that it’s a hobby rooted in nostalgia, there’s something ironic about the fact that TikTok – a short-video social-media platform better known for airing teenage angst – is driving the current fad for matchbox collecting. A new technology is sparking a craze for an outmoded one. 

It can safely be assumed that the respectable “matchbox-label collectors”, who met at the Boulogne Restaurant on Gerrard Street, London, on 17 September 1937, never imagined that they would one day be sharing their “swapping circle” with the fashionable young things of the 2020s.

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Chris Carter
Wealth Editor, MoneyWeek

Chris Carter spent three glorious years reading English literature on the beautiful Welsh coast at Aberystwyth University. Graduating in 2005, he left for the University of York to specialise in Renaissance literature for his MA, before returning to his native Twickenham, in southwest London. He joined a Richmond-based recruitment company, where he worked with several clients, including the Queen’s bank, Coutts, as well as the super luxury, Dorchester-owned Coworth Park country house hotel, near Ascot in Berkshire.

Then, in 2011, Chris joined MoneyWeek. Initially working as part of the website production team, Chris soon rose to the lofty heights of wealth editor, overseeing MoneyWeek’s Spending It lifestyle section. Chris travels the globe in pursuit of his work, soaking up the local culture and sampling the very finest in cuisine, hotels and resorts for the magazine’s discerning readership. He also enjoys writing his fortnightly page on collectables, delving into the fascinating world of auctions and art, classic cars, coins, watches, wine and whisky investing.

You can follow Chris on Instagram.