These are matchboxes and match cards for hotels, restaurants, brewing companies, cigarette companies, Cambridge colleges, universities, airlines, banks and building societies, National Trust for Scotland and businesses. There are duplicates but these have been kept.

A few have notes written on them by Joseph Needham.

The matchboxes were stored by Joseph Needham in 23 cigar boxes.

In some cases, it is not clear whether the matchbox came from a specific country or was made there and sold elsewhere.

For conservation reasons the matches were removed from the boxes or card sleeves in Jul. 2019.