A museum in a former match factory from 1881 in Częstochowa, with a production line from the 1930s and a collection of labels; visiting arrangements to be checked.
The Match Production Museum in Częstochowa is housed in a former factory at ul. Ogrodowa 68 and shows a production line from the 1930s. It belongs to the Industrial Monuments Route of the Silesian Voivodeship, but the museum's website is currently being rebuilt, so the visiting rules should be checked before a visit.
The plant was established in 1881 on the initiative of the Wrocław entrepreneurs Karol von Gehlig and Julian Huch, and production began in 1882. It was the first match factory in the Polish lands. Częstochowa matches were recognised by their boxes with a black cat, and attempts to counterfeit this mark were already happening in the interwar period.
In 1913 a film was shot here about the match factory fire of 16 June, one of the oldest surviving Polish documentary films. After a fire in 1930 the factory was modernised and equipped with machines by the Durlach company from 1926-1930. Since 2010 the factory has not been producing, and the historic machinery was then entered in the heritage register.
The museum was founded in 2002. According to its description, visitors can see the historic machines and follow the whole production cycle, from debarking the wood, through making the sticks, to packing the matches into boxes. The technology has practically not changed since 1913.
In the main hall are documents related to the match industry and an exhibition of sculptures made from a single match by Anatol Karoń, and in the second hall there is a phillumenistic exhibition with labels from the interwar period and from post-war and contemporary times.
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