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Matchbox Cover

An aluminum matchbox cover hand engraved with place names.

Collection of Glenbow Museum, Calgary, Alberta, C-47089-1908

aluminum, 6.4 x 4.1 x 2.3 cm, First World War

During the First World War, the German military pioneered the use of aluminum in airplanes, making pieces of this light and malleable metal highly sought after by Allied troops on the ground. This matchbox cover, also called a match safe, was made by Harry Franklin Ritz who was an 18-year-old assistant postmaster in Lacombe, Alberta when he enlisted in the spring of 1916. Private Ritz scratched his name, battalion and the battles in which he fought on the outside of this simple object.