Antique Pre 1900 ARTB English labels

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Bryant & May ‘Flaming Fusee’ matches for cigars
and pipes, London, England, 1861-1895

Match-making was a particularly dangerous job in the 1800s. Workers – mainly women – employed by companies such as Bryant & May to make matches commonly experienced a condition known as phossy jaw. This was caused by poisoning from the yellow phosphorous used in the head of the match. Phossy jaw was a terribly disfiguring and sometimes fatal condition. Eventually, a combination of this health danger, poor pay and long hours led to the formation of a trade union for the workers. The Match Girls Strike of 1888, led by social activist Annie Besant (1847-1933), was a landmark industrial action and led to better pay. In 1901, Bryant & May finally stopped using yellow phosphorous in their matches.

All right reserved to 'Brought to Life', a website provided by the Science Museum, London

http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/broughttolife/objects/display.aspx?id=5369

A set of beautiful glazed Solo Austria pre 1914 (WW1) labels - You can see the Solo's Key logo

Let's see these galleries of lovely labels on this Asian website dedicated to the hobby

http://www.phillu-asia.com/

(you can click the drop-down menu to see the galleries)

More old 山 (Yamashirokan) Japanese label



Foo Dog / Shishi - Chinese guardian lions

Chinese guardian lions, known as Shishi (Chinese: 石獅; pinyin: shíshī; literally "stone lion") or Imperial guardian lion, and often called "Foo Dogs" in the West, are a common representation of the lion in pre-modern China. They have traditionally stood in front of Chinese Imperial palaces, Imperial tombs, government offices, temples, and the homes of government officials and the wealthy, from the Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 220), and were believed to have powerful mythic protective benefits. Pairs of guardian lions are still common decorative and symbolic elements at the entrances to restaurants, hotels, supermarkets and other structures, with one sitting on each side of the entrance, in China and in other places around the world where the Chinese people have immigrated and settled, especially in local Chinatowns.

The lions are always created in pairs, with the male resting his paw upon the world and the female restraining a playful cub that is on its back. They occur in many types of Chinese pottery and in Western imitations.

Lovely old lot of labels from Burma

The Hare With Amber eyes - A special book I recently read

An interview with ceramicist and author Edmund de Waal about his book "The Hare With Amber eyes".

The book was inspired by tiny Japanese sculptures - Netsuke - that were passed down through five generations of de Waal's family.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-12188626

 

 http://www.edmunddewaal.com/

Edmund de Waal's  Netsuke Gallery - http://www.edmunddewaal.com/hare_with_amber_eyes/hare_netsuke_gallery.html

The potter Edmund de Waal was a 17-year-old apprentice when he first set eyes on his great-uncle's collection of Japanese netsuke. Only later, when he inherited the tiny carvings, did he begin to understand the extraordinary story they told.

Netsuke are very small. Smaller than a matchbox, often as small as the joint of my little-finger, these Japanese ivory, bone and wooden carvings are hard explosions of exactitude. You roll them in your hands and find the carver has added a joke: the tail of a disappearing rat, a deliquescent plum fallen from a basket. Some of the netsuke are studies in running movement, so that your fingers move along a surface of uncoiling rope or spilt water. Others have small, congested movements that knot your touch: a girl in a wooden bath, a vortex of clam shells. Some do both, surprising you: an intricately ruffled dragon leans against a simple rock. You work your fingers round the smoothness and stoniness of the ivory to meet this sudden density of dragon. There is often a supplementary pleasure in finding where the signature of the carver is placed, on the sole of a sandal, the end of a branch, the thorax of a hornet.

Ebay To Go - Just a qute appliction ....

Does somebody know what all these people on the label do?

This label was exchanged with my friend Yechel...

4 Old "PROTECTION FROM FIRE" Japanese labels

Scary old Japanese Kirin and Dragons labels

Kirin and horse

Dagon King

Kirin (Probably a text mistake - Mippon instead of Nippon) 

Interesting old 山 (Yamashirokan) Japanese label

 

My friend Yecheal Biskovitz noted that the letter 山 (Yama) stands for "Mountain" in Japanese (and Chinese), but it's also the symbol of the manufacturer of these labels - Yamashirokan [based in Osaka, Japan].

The Leopard - Paraffin match. Old British label

Do you remember the story by Richard Bamford : http://blog.extensis.com/fun-and-games/phillumeny-is-the-hobby-of-phillumenists.php , who discovered a box of matches of "THE  LEOPARD”, which were lost in the early 1900’s? Than, I have manged to find a similar label -
  

More than 100 years ago (Pre 1914 WW1) Bernard Furth early Austrian labels

This is an unused c1896 Bernard Furth Patent
Nigger-Holzchen Austrian ARTB label

Packet size - The Rex brand

Old Israeli NUR Acre (Aco) Eretz Israel Deer logo matchbox label

Japanese labels which include a figure of Matchboxes, Matches or Cigarettes

More lovely sets of Japanese labels

Lovely old (more than 100 years ago) POJATZI's labels' photos found somewere over the internet

Go it!

Lavely old (more than 100 years ago) SCHIENOST's labels, found somewere over the internet