Back in the mid 1970's I was a teenager living in the SF Bay area, me and my friend used to take the BART train into San Francisco and collect matches, the 70's were still a good time for match collectors. I kept the matches in a box lined up - one up and one down, this kept the books from getting wrinkles.

One day while looking at my collection, a fire erupted in the box - I had not even touched those matches that started on fire. I was lucky I happened to have some 7up and doused the fire but ruined a good portion of the collection. If I did not have the liquid I have always suspected it would have caused a house fire. I spent the rest of the afternoon salvaging the matches and took scissors and cut off the match heads.

In the 1980's when working in Reno (I smoked then) I had a book of matches ignite in my pocket, burned a hole in my pocket and burned my leg bad.

Nowadays I remove the staple and the entire cardboard out of the matchbook. I do not trade with anyone and it works for me.