Match Museum

One can hardly believe that Harald Wirth has created all of those fascinating models in the Hof match museum by himself only using matches. You can admire famous automobile and motorcycle brands, the Gorch Fock, the Ferris wheel from the Prater in Vienna, a whole Wild West world and much more – everything recreated from matches with exact detail and done so with great love and skill.

The gem of the whole exhibition is a steam locomotive, series 01 at a scale of 1:43.5. 3700 matches were installed in more than 700 hours of work – nothing exceptional for the tinkerer who sometimes requires several years to build his models.

He spent three years working at his latest model: 640 hours and 3700 matches comprise a almost 30 centimeter long Ferrari. The hood and doors, windows and steering wheel even are movable.

“I’ve been building things using matches since I was ten”, says the almost 50-year old Hofer. He explains that working several hours at night on one model, really is a waiting game.

You wouldn’t notice it at first sight: many pieces are movable and equipped with many details – tires, spokes, and even the motorcycle chains are made of matches.

The numerous models have been presented Europe-wide at international and national scale model exhibitions since 1988. In 1994, Harald Wirth even entered the Guinness Book of World Records as owner of the biggest collection of match vehicles. A collection of 600 matchboxes complements the show.