Today's installment is a bit of a mystery—an eBay find that was simply listed as "Matchbox labels safety match Russia." They arrived in a small envelope from the Czech Republic with no additional information. I got the impression from the other items listed by the seller that these are old enough to be Soviet-era.

Fortunately, there's an active group of Czech matchbook collectors online so I was able to do some basic research, though I never found these particular matchbooks. Thanks to an article in eye magazine, I learned that the former Czechoslovakia was somewhat of a center for match production. Click on any image for a larger version.

I love Soviet-era art but confess to know virtually nothing about it. My knowledge of Soviet life comes mostly from watching "Ninotchka" too many times.

These particular matchbox labels were intended for the collectible market, which was apparently very large in the Soviet Union, and were never glued to matchboxes. You can find a large variety of unused matchbox labels on eBay from various former Soviet-bloc nations.

Obviously these images have to do with sporting events and I immediately thought of the Olympics, but I don't remember chess as a competitive sport.

Thanks to a couple of bonus matchbox labels the seller threw in, I know that at least for those two, the manufacturer was Solo Susice, one of the big three match manufacturers in Czechoslovakia. The Solo match company began operating in 1834 and only recently stopped making matches.

But that's about all I know.

If anyone has any additional information, please post it in the Comments. Even though I didn't have time to research too deeply before posting this, I love the drawings and that seemed like reason enough to throw them on the old scanner bed and share them this week.

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