Vintage 1981 Royal Wedding Matchbook 👑 Prince Charles Lady Diana Souvenir NOS, Eddy Match Canada

Where Were You on 29th July 1981? 👑 A Vintage Royal Wedding Matchbook, Prince Charles and Lady Diana, Eddy Match Co., Canada

Size: 2" x 1 1/2"

Ask anyone old enough and they'll tell you where they were. This little paper matchbook was made for that day. On the front, a color photograph of the couple from their engagement - Diana in her blue suit and white bow blouse, Charles behind her in a navy suit with his hand on her shoulder - over a navy band reading 29th July 1981. in white script. On the back, in navy copperplate: Marriage of H R H The Prince of Wales and Lady Diana Spencer. 29th July 1981., then the dark striker strip and 20 matches / allumettes. Inside, the matches are still stapled in. Every one I have is unstruck.

🍁 Made in Canada

Down at the fold is a maker's line, cut off at the edge on my photos, but on copies of the same matchbook photographed flat it reads EDDY MATCH CO., LTD., TORONTO, ONT. - which is why the count is in English and French. The Eddy name goes back to E. B. Eddy, who started making wooden matches in Hull, Quebec in 1854, and in 1927 his match business was folded together with the Dominion, Canadian and World match companies into the Eddy Match Company.

💍 The engagement picture

The cover photo comes from the engagement. Buckingham Palace announced it on February 24, 1981, and for the photocall Diana wore an off-the-rack blue suit by Cojana that she'd bought at Harrods, with a white blouse tied at the neck - and in the pictures Charles rests his hand on her shoulder, just like this. That picture was everywhere in 1981, on newspapers, magazine covers and all the souvenirs that came rushing out once the date was set.

👑 The wedding

The televisions were on before breakfast, and the streets outside St. Paul's were packed with people who had slept on the pavement to hold their spot. They were married at St. Paul's Cathedral rather than Westminster Abbey - St. Paul's held more people - in front of about 3,500 guests, with somewhere between 700 million and a billion people watching on television around the world. Diana was a 20-year-old kindergarten assistant. Her dress, by David and Elizabeth Emanuel, was ivory silk taffeta with some ten thousand pearls and sequins and a 25-foot train that had to be folded into the Glass Coach for the ride from Clarence House. Afterward, out on the Buckingham Palace balcony, Charles kissed his bride in front of the crowd, and royal couples have been doing it on that balcony ever since. Britain made it a public holiday, the street parties came out, and the commemorative mugs, tea towels, tins and little matchbooks like this one came off the presses by the thousand.

🔥 Phillumeny

There's a word for collecting matchbooks - phillumeny - and its collectors love a dated commemorative book, because almost everybody struck the matches and threw the cover away. Royal souvenirs themselves are an old British habit; Staffordshire potters were making mugs for royal weddings back in Georgian times, and in the Victorian era, by Queen Victoria's jubilees in 1887 and 1897, the potteries of Longton, Fenton and Burslem were turning out jubilee plates and beakers by the crate. This one just happens to fit in a vest pocket.

👑 About these

They're about 2 by 1 1/2 inches. Frame one with a wedding-day newspaper, add it to a royal shelf, or give it to the friend who got up before dawn to watch. Please don't strike them. The supply is finite - nobody's making 1981 royal wedding matchbooks again, and once these last unstruck ones are gone, they'll be very difficult to acquire.