Spruce matches went out on bad management

16. May 2025 at 16:36

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Even in the 19th century, two matching rooms were established in Slovakia, one in Ružomberok, the other in Banská Bystrica. At the time of socialism, they joined one big factory.

While the smaller plant in Ružomberok produced 250,000 match boxes a day after World War II, Banská Bystrica in the 1970s, when it was called Smrečina, it spewed more than half a million per day.

After the Velvet Revolution, the match was passed and its parent company privatization, after which it went down the water. And she did not even benefit from another change of owners at the turn of the millennium.

The new owners have completed the production of matches to focus on other wood products. However, they could not sell them with a profit.

We describe the Smrečin brand story in the next section series Made in Czechoslovakiadedicated to cult products and brands whose roots date back to the time of the common Czech-Slovak state.

Frightening beginnings of matches

The first references to the Banská Bystrica matching room are from 1850. Her first owners are not known much.

At that time, white phosphorus, which was toxic, was used to produce matches, thus damaging the health of the workers. Respectively, especially workers, because (young) women in the matchroom in the 19th century prevailed.

As part of the production process, the workers dipped wooden sticks directly into the cadds with white phosphorus. He caused them health problems, such as the disintegration of the jaws.

In 1855, Johan Ludström, who began to use non -toxic red phosphorus, perfected the matches. However, it was only slowly in practice and the white phosphorus was definitely replaced by several decades.

After the First World War, the disintegration of Austria-Hungary and the establishment of Czechoslovakia, the match in Banská Bystrica changed the owner. In 1929, Solo was owned by the United Czechoslovak Special Sirker and Lučebné factory in Prague. This was especially known for the production of the matches of The Key brand and in the interwar period also penetrated into Slovakia.

It was modernized slowly

After the Second World War, the factory in Banská Bystrica nationalized and also moved it under the national company Drevoindustria. At the turn of 1947/1948, Czechoslovakia experienced a so -called « match crisis ». At that time, the matches became scarce because the news spread in public to increase and People quickly redeemed them.

After taking power by the Communists, the Banská Bystrica match in 1949 came under the national enterprise Iskra. In 1958, the organizationally moved again, And under the sprucewhich also covered the saws, furniture and chipboard production.

A year later, the production of matches from Ružomberok moved to the Smrečina spruce. At the beginning of the 1960s, this factory was the only producer of matches in Slovakia.

Production was modernized relatively slowly. Even in the 1970s, matches were produced on machines from 1921. Nevertheless, spruce produced more than 170 million boxes of matches per year, respectively 560,000 a day.

Since 1970 the match boxes of wooden veneer have replaced the cardboard, which ended the era of match stickers. They replaced them with dozens of different picture motifs. There were also added machines for the production and packaging of matches from AG Hering from the Federal Republic of Germany.

Privatization and strange audition

After the Velvet Revolution in 1992, spruce went through a coupon privatization. Its shareholders became one of the largest investment funds in Czechoslovakia VUB Invest as well as Transacta, Energy and Naftainvest.