OT: really OT - safety matches

[Suz]

Does anyone know the best place to get 400 small matchboxes? It's for PTA kids competition, how many things can you get in a matchbox etc.

Suzanne

[Mike]

Why not tell them all to buy a box of matchs and let the parents deal with the contents. It will save you having to be so worried.

[Nigel Molesworth]

Get the parents to buy them.

Oh, and specify "how many *different* things ..." or an empty one will win (air molecules).

[Lobster]

No, it'll be the smartarse who buys a bumper pack of household matches... that being said, there *is* no standard size for a matchbox AFAIK, so they'd have to specify the brand to use which would probably be awkward.

Think I'd try a match manufacturer as a first port of call.

David

[Suz]

Exactly David. We intend to supply them an instruction sheet and the empty matchbox. But a match manufacturer? Googling seems to come up with mostly Indian companies. There used to be a match manufacturer here in Belfast, along with tobacco companies, but they are all long gone now.

A wholesalers and a bonfire might just be the easiest way to go.

[meow2222]

If you buy 400 matchboxes, expect to be arrested and detained without trial. We'll follow your story on the news.

NT

[Suz]

Surely shops would buy this amount from wholesalers? 400 matchbox contents wouldn't be made into much of an incendiary device. I do live in Belfast you know ...

[Grumpy owd man]

AFAIK there are no match manufacturers in the UK! there may be a manufacturer of matchboxes, but I doubt it.

[Me]

Agreed Grumpy.

Suz,

Swedishmatch

have about 80% of the UK market according to the competition commission. I am sure that as a gesture they could send you 400 empty boxes.

You could try

who could send you boxes that advertise themselves!

Worth suggesting it to them.

Otherwise get your local shopkeeper to buy them wholesale for you but then you have to dispose of the matches. My guess is that as you can buy these printed with your own logo for about 7p a box it must be half that for standard boxes from a cash and carry.

Simon

[Dave Liquorice]

But a legitmate purchase for such an entity. I think it would raise a few eyebrows and some questions if you wandered into to Tesco and took all the Englands Glory off the shelf.

It would be enough. Make a quite a bang is suitably contained.

I thought you lot had got over all that now. B-)

[Suz]

We have, well most of us, but the knowledge is still there. Can't beat ye olde paraffin, bottle and a rag.

[John White]

There's always the d-i-y approach.

Draw a suitably sized box and sleeve, complete with assembly tabs and instructions, on a sheet of paper, and then copy it onto suitable card.

The kids (or their parents) could then cut out, fold and paste the "matchbox" and its sleeve together.

You would probably get at least two boxes on an A4 sheet, and 200 sheets of 160 gsm card plus copying might be cheaper than 400 ready made matchboxes.

John

[Lobster]

"'Ere, miss, e's gone 'an cheated: 'is box is 2mm longer than it should be..."

[Suz]

Two very good suggestions, Simon, thanks.

A local shopkeeper is very supportive of the school and I'm sure he'd do it. He might even donate them, hmmm. It's a 24hour BP garage and EuroSpar. Every Christmas he shuts the forecourt and has a Xmas concert, with the school brass band, gives out free soup etc. Santa then comes on the back of their recovery truck and gives a free present to about 500 kids. He says it's to thank all the customers. V unusual in this age of squeezing the last drop of profit out of everything.

[Lobster]

Good idea, worth exploring: or maybe you could find several similar donors, for whom a donation of 100 boxes would be trivial, cost-wise?

I'm now waiting for your next post: "What can I with 45,654 unused matches?"!

David

[Andy Dingley]

Scale model of the Titanic probably, what with it being Belfast and all.

[John White]

Good point. Commercial matchboxes will be far more standard.

John

[Suz]

Flog them on eBay, what else? Offer them as a prize to the winner...

[Thomas Prufer]

Would a film canisters also do? (The black plastic cylinders with a plastic lid that 35 mm film comes in.)

I asked for "a few" at a one-hour photo shop and was given a large bin liner bag full.

Thomas Prufer

[sponix]

Possibly a laarge craft shop may have them..such as HobbyCraft:

they sell stuff such as cottom reels and empty tissue boxes so it's gotta be worth a go! sponix