12/04/2025

"The Old Hearth" Brand (c. 1930s)

Hearth! The herald fire burns!

Another Italian export match! A very cosy one too. So this match was indeed made in Italy, but almost exclusively for export, most likely in England. Hearths are just big fireplaces basically, and while their use is ubiquitous across the world for the most part, it’s quite a typical English “thing”.

It gives off a sense of warmth and reliability to me; a hearth is something useful, and a source of heat, food and socialisation. This conjures up quite positive imagery, and how do you light a hearth? A match of course!

As this label lacks any maker's information, we can’t date it all too effectively. Though the colours and export specifics would put it around 1930 to 1940 at a guess. The Old Hearth design changed slightly over time (although the timeline itself is mostly unknown). The later variants had a more simplified label, which lacked the wavy lines around the edge. Later still (presumably), further designs featured the price on the label as well, which was a more modern development. As this label is the most complicated variant of the design, we can comfortably assume it to be one of the earliest.

I like the design quite a bit. When I was younger, my dad often took me to pubs around the more rural part of England that I grew up in. He told me once when I was 2 days old he took me to a local pub, put me on the bartop and said to the landlord “Les! Look what I done!” Quaint anecdote aside, with most of these places being quite old buildings they still had these hearths built in them. Makes you wonder about the hundreds of years of stories and meals that were shared around the fire, it almost feels a bit like time travel if you close your eyes.