Hey, no fair! That's still the same fire! Obviously you're right- normally you'd hunker down in place and keep the same fire going. That would be the plan, anyways. Lots of things could happen that could force your hand of the situation could change in a way that made moving the logical choice.

Of course, there's the flip side of needing more than one match per fire. Hopefully you have plenty of good tinder to get a fire going and it goes with one match but that doesn't always happen. In any event, I don't want to make a big deal out of it, and if I didn't think they were worth having I wouldn't have bought such a nice match case! My first choice is usually a firesteel, then a BIC lighter, then matches. But that's just personal preference on my part. And I wouldn't think of going out on a hiker without some matches as backup.




I have a half dozen of those UCO cases in yellow or orange. I think they're pretty nice. Yeah, the striker being on the outside is asking for trouble they include extra material inside. The plastic UCO cases are hard to beat for the money! I bought mine from Amazon for $7 shipped, and that's filled with UCO Stormproof matches.




Those cheapie $1 Coleman cases aren't really too bad. The matches are great but they're serviceable, and really free when you consider the case is a buck. The striker is terrific! I can't believe how big a sheet you get. And it will light every brand of strike-on-box I've seen including the UCO. I found that by cutting the UCO matches down by 3/16" or so they'll fit in the Coleman case.

No I haven't had a chance to try the brass ones.

While we are talking aout match cases that work, there is the classic Marbles metal case. It does not include a good striker (the outside surface is scored for that purpose, but it definitely will not open accidentally). I have had that happen a time or two with the Walmart/Coleman plastic jobs, although not regularly.

Strangely enough I've been trying to find one of the Siva match safes myself but I haven't found anywhere with them in stock, nether the brass or aluminum ones. Anyone have any ideas where to look?

I find the marbles case a bit hard to open with warm supple fingers. Mine is in a box in the shed because I wouldn't want to risk it in winter.

Cabellas has them. In Black and Brass if I remember correctly.

As an FYI I was messing around with the $1 Coleman's match case from Wal-Mart a few nights ago and was surprised to find that the cheap, tiny fire steel glued to the bottom does indeed work well enough to light a cotton ball with ease! I was actually pretty surprised. Now after scraping it a dozen times to test it I'd say you probably aren't gonna get more than a couple dozen fires out of it at best before it's gone but in a pinch I'm glad to know it works.

Hey Snake sorry for not responding sooner, I thought this thread was dead! I've looked on Cabela's website about a week or so ago and they didn't have them. In fact all the websites I've come across with a google search that have them listed seem to have been out of stock for some time. I'm wondering if Silva discontinued that line.

Yup. They work well. I've started a lot of fires with them over the years.

NP Cauldron. I'll look through my catalogs and find you an item number for reference. As I remeber they do not name them as silva, but that is what people have indentified them as. Thanks for respondind and I'll be in touch.

I've tried looking under Silva match case/safe, brass match case/safe, aluminum match case/safe and match/matches both on their site and through google and had no luck. If you could give me a ref number I would be very grateful.