Civil War Patriotic Eagle Match Safe (ON HOLD,BS)

This is another nice item being offered, it is a Civil War soldier's match safe. It is brass with a hinged-lid and push button to open. It measures approximately 3” x 1 1/4”. Both sides have the patriotic spread eagle engraving, and the bottom has a ribbed surface used for striking the matches.

Although today we don't think much about it, to the Civil War soldier in the field, it was an everyday necessity to have dry matches, for campfires, candles, tobacco, etc. This item shows signs of use, but overall is still in nice condition and opens and closes just fine, just some typical tarnishing. In my book “The Civil War Soldier – His Personal Items”, I show an exact example from my collection that was dug at Antietam and go into more detail about the importance of matches to the Civil War soldier (see pictures).

There is another example of this piece in Time/Life “Echoes of Glory – Arms and Equipment of the Union” (see pictures). There is another very similar one at the Gettysburg NPS Battlefield Museum (see pictures).

A match safe is truly a necessity for any Civil War collection, just about every soldier had one. I had quite a few dug examples over the years which validates their use. It would go great with a Civil War soldier’s personal effects display. It comes in the glass top display case pictured.