1901 - 1915
Office: Gammel Kongevej 15B, Copenhagen
Factory: Maglebyvej 26 - 28, Skælskør
Already in March 1901 were rumors that there was a new match
factory comming up in the province.
The rumors were fueled in September 1903 when the Grocers Unions
President Christian A. Munck narrated in the exchange of ideas
on the creation of a matchstick factory and then two days later
convened an Extraordinary General Meeting of coffee surrogate
factory "Denmark", in order to purchase a special
patent on matches of fir and raise capital for the construction
of a factory.
The newspapers gave a short debate between Munck and Gosch &
Co., but after some time the debate die out and shortly after it
was found that Munck had come a seat in Gosch 's board.
The debate flared , however, again in 1905, when millbuilder
Hans Christensen aired his patent on the " electric " , pointed
stick and told the press about how a consortium was ready to
take over his patent and start a new factory, with affordable
matches to compete with the
majors.
Gosch & Co. took a prompt insertion of advertisements and
articles in newspapers .
The waves run high between Gosch and the merchants , retailers
and merchants and , not least, millbuilder Christensen and Oscar
West from Godthaabsvejs Tændstikfabrik , where it flew with
profanity between the parties.
Gosch and West, in a coordinated action , tried to demonstrate
how the calculations of the economic base was too
optimistic.
However, the 22th of
December 1906 Købmændenes Tændstikfabrik could proclaim
that they had bought a site by Skaelskoer by landowner
Castenskjold and that was allready signed a minimum annual sales
of 15 million boxes .
The capital had to be mobilized by 75,000 shares , 75,000
debentures and 75,000 in bank loans.
As managing president Valdemar Fock was employeed and as
sulfur master engineer Lagerqvist that came from Godthaab
Tændstikfabrik .
The factory was completed in the summer of 1927 , built by the
greatest security methods and machines could be tried with the
newly bought wood from Russia.
There was recruited 19 men and 21 women and a few boys and in
one year the number of employees increased to approx.
60.
In the beginning there was repeatedly complains about wages ,
which eventually resulted in piecework rates that could give
workers up to 2 - 3 times as high salary as functionaries .
However, the quality did not follow with wages , on the
contrary, and received a lot of complaints from dealers of the
finished stick .
As a result, sales , and thus earnings as expected and as they
could not pay for the next cargo of timber which was the last
before the oceans froze over , they had to resort to Danish
willow tree .
But due to lack of capital they could only buy small lots and
the factory could only run for short periods . Sulfur
master
Lagerqvist and engineer Schmidt was blamed for the bad start of
the factory and they were sacked and engineer Franke from Sweden
was employeed instead. Even though he raised the quality and
earnings , the economy was not on an even keel .
Landowner Castenskjold offered at a crisis meeting in October
1909 to provide a loan of 20,000 kroner, on condition that the
board could provide further 30,000 kroner and the president Fock
moved from Copenhagen to Skaelskoer to be closer to production .
Since Fock however refused this , Castenskjold withdrawed
his offer and Fock was replaced by Sofus Samson .
The Board convened an extraordinary general meeting on the 2th
of
December in order to get an arrangement with creditors and raise
capital , but since attendance was low, they had to call for a
new General Meeting on the 20th of
December, with the only item on the agenda : the dissolution .
Meanwhile, the bailiff attempted to pawn the company office in
Copenhagen , and the 18th of
December at
16 a´clock , the company was placed in liquidation where a lot
of bags of documents sent by special train to Copenhagen Court
and the premises was closed and sealed .
On the 1st of
April 1910 a foreclosure auction was held, but as the bidding
seemed to be too low, a new auction was called, where the
highest bid was 90,000 kroner, which still was incredibly low,
since the buildings were insured for 86,000 and engines for
100,000 and inventory of 14,000 kroner.
Immediately after the auction , the factory was sold to a
consortium of Gosch & Co
and
Hellerup and Glødefri for 90,100 kroner.
Filling machines were sent to the factory Merkur in Randers and
the rest of the machines were sent to Københavns Export
Tændstikfabriks factory in Ninove in Belgium.
The property in Skaelskoer was sold to purchase the 1st of May
1915.
