Scafool, you're just being a hot head now.

The "White stuff" by the way is Sesquisulfide of Phosphorus, as noted above a less lethal derivative of Phosphorus.

"..the tip of the match contains Sesquisulfide of Phosphorus and the rest of the head a burning agent..."

I've been very happy with Penley brand SA matches. Their quality control is far better the the Diamond brand matches, IMHO.

I guess you guys can't get good matches like Redbird or Eddy Lights by the Eddy Match Company.
Ahem, No good strike anywhere matches, it must be rough.

Where do you get Diamond Strike Anywhere Matches? I haven't seen them anywhere.

On a backpacking trip to Big Bend National Park a couple years ago, our group was sitting down to dinner. One person always took a set of matches in one of the orange coghlan containers, but I cannot remember if they were strike anywhere or REI micro torches. She took one match out and began screwing on the cap. When she screwed on the cap, one or more matches rubbed against the striker she had also stored in the same container. She didn't notice it had ignited and she screwed the cap tightly. Out of the corner of my eye I had noticed a small whiff of smoke. She was sitting across from me in a circle of us. A few seconds later she noticed the container was smoking and threw it into the middle of the circle. The container then BLEW..lol and neither the cap nor container were ever found.

match brands must be regional like flour and canned goods.
in Minnesota it seems to be Diamond and Blue Tip.i have seen Redbird in Canada.

It seems to change with the Province too. Almost all the wooden matches made in Canada are actually made by the E.B. Eddy Company no matter what the trade name on the box is. Eddy light matches were more common in Ontario and had a picture of a light house (the Eddystone Lighthouse) on the striped box.

Wooden matches are not very good in a personal or hiking kit for a lot of reasons but are very good to have as household supplies, especially if you use wood or coal for heat.

scafool, I agree with you that in most respects matches are not the best choice anymore if one has limited space. They are single use items and unless waterproofed can be completely useless. That said, in all my little kits (I've made up four, one for each vehicle and one in the house) from a belt pouch kit to a full daypack I've included at least a few strike anywhere matches wrapped in foil in my fire starting pouches. If the weather is good, that's what I'll use first to make a small fire to have some tea. If the weather is wet, I have other choices but then unless I got stuck, I'm a fair weather hiker anyway.

Matches are still the easiest fire starters to use in reasonable weather. Sparkers are the most reliable (firesteels, mag bars, Blastmatch, Spark-Lite, etc,) especially in bad weather.

Actually CSG, taking up space is not the reason.
I don't like them for emergency kit because I had some go off in my pocket once about 35 years ago.
If it wasn't for that I would likely do as you do.

(Yes, I still remember the event.)