DET DANSKE TÆNDSTIKMUSEUM HIS

1890 - 1906
Godthaabsvej 39, København

Glover Master Lars Larsen moved in the late 1870s from Odense to Copenhagen, where he settled as a merchant and in doing so he met Mr. Christian Sørensen Møller . After several years of having imported matches from the Swedish Nybro Match Factory , which had put Lars Larsen's own labels on the boxes, he decided in 1890 to start his own match factory . The same year he applied for permission to start test production of matches in one half of a building on Godhaabsvej 10d associated gardener Høyer, and which had hitherto been used for tanning .

After Christian Møller had sought the fire inspector to get permission and this was given , although the fire inspector took occasion to rebuke Larsen for his poor equipment proposal in the cramped space. Lars Larsen followed the fire inspector's advice and production, which was estimated at 20,000 boxes a day began.

Already 2 years after , in 1892 Lars Larsen for unknown reasons choosed to sell the factory to grocer Julius Ferdinand Wiberg , which also renamed the factory to " Godthaabsvejs Tændstikfabrik by JF Wiberg " . Wiberg had not the wherewithal to run the factory and since the winter of 1892-1893 closed the port of Riga and thus the supply of wood , Wiberg had to stop production.

Wiberg came into contact with Gustav Jorgensen and Oscar West, who wanted to buy the factory , on the condition that the authorities accepted that they could use the permissions that Wiberg already had received . In April 1893 Jorgensen and West was registred as owners of the factory which they renamed " Godthaabsvejs Tændstikfabrik " . They immediately began to expand the factory to the remainder of the building and made the following years a number of renovations and expansions of the production.

After a fire in 1895, when the entire top floor of the warehouse was razed , the engines on the ground floor was saved and the production could be resumed after a period in which the 14 employees had been sent home. In 1897 Jorgensen and West built a small storage shed and in this regard, the fire commission , that it is not desirable that the " small and poor landscaped factory" was " aimlessly extended" as there were plans to construct a 30 meter wide road down to Nyelandsvej. ( probably the extension of Fasanvej ) .

During 1900, Private Bank President r Axel Heide worked to gather the Danish matchstick factories and in 1901 he managed to merge the Copenhagen factories , P. Rohmell , Godthaabsvejs Tændstikfabrik and Københyavns Tændstikfabrik with "Atkietændstikfabrikken Merkur" into the limited liability company "Københavns Tændstikfabrikker og Aktietændstikfabrikken Merkur " . H. E. Gosch & Co. were not officially in this group , but had a pre-arranged definitely aggreement with the new company. Oscar West was hired as president of the company . In this act Godthaabsvejens Tændstikfabrik had bought P. Rohmells machinery and equipment for 10,000 kroner and transferred it to their factory .

In February 1903 H. E. Gosch & Co. closed Godthaabsvejens Tændstikfabrik and Oscar West retired as president. H. E. Gosch & Co. used , however, until 1906 the name " Godthaabsvejens Tændstikfabrik " on some of their labels.