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The Old Cornish Mine series of matchboxes first appeared in England in 1962 and quickly became popular with the public and with matchbox collectors (phillumenists). They were produced by the Cornish Match Company of Halsetown, Cornwall.

This web site celebrates these wonderful matchboxes and is designed to be a comprehensive resource for anyone who wants to share knowledge about the Old Cornish Mine and related series. It shows :

all known Old Cornish Mine labels together with pictures and a description of each one, including dozen and gross packet labels
example of complete boxes (small size, regular size and mantelpiece size boxes) plus dates they were issued
information on the artists and the publicity competitions run by Cornish Match Company
a map showing where all the mines were
all known labels and boxes in the related series (Old West Country, Old Kentish Country and Cornish Wreck)
some resources, including collector’s sheets for all known labels

This website was created by Mike and Sue Pryor with enormous assistance from Ian Blewitt, Steven Smith and Jason Titley. All illustrations are from Mike, Ian, Steven and Andrew Hollock’s collections.

Website history

2013 – site went live (November)
2014 – Cornish Wreck series added with full details
2015 – minor updates
2016 – minor updates
2017 – minor updates
2018 – images of all the labels in every series have been added to the pages
2019 – minor updates
2020 – minor updates to Cornish Wrecks information and added illustrations of matchboxes
2021 – new Dates of Issue page
2022 – minor updates
2023 – migrated to new ISP