Matchcases by K & M Industries
History of our matchcase company.
The first K&M matchcases were built in the mid-80s as a solution to a
one too many time failure of the venerable 1890s designed Marble’s matchcase,
a product that was for many years the official Boy Scout matchcase. Having
carried one since the mid 50s with complete confidence in its dependability
it was nothing short of a shock to open it to find wet matches during an elk
hunt in miserable wet weather. Thinking it was fluke unlikely to repeat itself
the case was dried, the matches were replaced, and it continued to be a trusted
piece of Keith’s hunting gear – until it happened again.
The second time was the last time, for the K&M was born that night on
a small lathe in his service van. The original had a single O ring, no button
on the bottom, no knurl, no compass, and no string – just a simple tube
with a simple effective plug. Several were made for family and friends and
proved adequate to the task except for the possibility of the plug separating
from the tube while carrying in a pocket, prompting Keith to consider a retaining
mechanism.
Previous bad experiences with the Marble’s threads galling or binding
and rendering the case unusable immediately eliminated threads as an option
for serious consideration. In order for the matchcase to be taken seriously
its contents had to be available under the worst possible conditions anyone
could encounter anywhere on the globe. At some point the idea to add a button
to the bottom of the tube to provide an anchor for the string came to mind
and a prototype was machined. Version #2 proved to be absolutely foolproof
and again several were made for family and friends with no idea of ever mass-marketing
them.
Addition of a second O ring was prompted as the result of an O ring breaking
during installation on a single O ring model, the one and only failure out
of literally hundreds of thousands used since, but an event which nevertheless
caused Keith to speculate on the dire consequences it could have had on a
hunter, explorer, or wilderness adventurer.
At some point within this time frame a highly scientific and rigorous test
was devised by Keith and his sons, who love to fish for brook trout in Elk
Creek, a beautiful, pristine, mountain stream that flows past Elk River.
The best fishing is in the nearly impenetrable alder brush that stretches
several miles upstream from town, brush so thick and nasty that the only practical
way to fish it once you find the creek is to wade. In addition to the ubiquitous
brush, accessing the creek involves wading up to crotch deep through black
muck with the odor of rotting mammoths. The creek depth ranges from ankle
to swim so fancy waders are more dangerous than useful. Approved attire consists
of clothes you won’t mind throwing away, a fishing bag with a closable
flap (to keep recently caught victims from swimming away when you and the
bag go under, sometimes quite unexpectedly), an old pair of lace-up boots
tall enough to protect your ankles, and solar panel protection in the form
of your favorite hat.
The water is just barely warm enough to flow while the merciless sun bakes
everything above the constantly changing water line, which tends to confuse
the body’s temperature regulating mechanism. The hike out must be accomplished
on near-frozen legs while sweat pours off your upper half. The unavoidable
return trip through the mammoth muck leaves you smelling like a rotting elk
carcass, hence the deceptively benign-sounding name “Elk” Creek.
Thankfully the road is fairly close but you’ll have to arrange your
own transportation, since no sane person will allow you to ride in their car.
The experience of fishing this stretch of Elk Creek is such that many never
make a second attempt. In fact, Keith says that nearly 40 years after being
introduced to it by a pair of masochists, he’s never, not even once,
encountered another fisherman in there.
Keith and his sons, Mark and Jeff, calculated that tying matchcases to their
ankles while fishing this stretch of Elk Creek would most likely duplicate
or exceed anything normal people would encounter on this planet. After much
testing without so much as a single failure on the part of the matchcases
Keith’s wife finally figured they’d proved themselves well enough
that he and the boys could do more work and less fishing. From that point
on the only real way to convince her more testing was necessary was to make
major design alterations, i.e., longer string, different brand of O ring,
knurling or no knurling, different colored compass face, etc.
It wasn’t long before the original ball on the plug began to look inefficient
in that it served no useful purpose other than providing something to grasp
in order to remove the plug from the tube. A compass seemed like a natural
addition to a piece of equipment designed for survival, if a small enough
one could be found.
After long years of chasing leads that all turned into dead ends K&M finally
hit pay dirt in 1991 with a small button compass imported by Guttman Cutlery
that appeared to be of very high quality. Sample matchcases were machined
and mailed to several large catalog stores. Prior to mailing a note reading
“If this paper is wet or the match won’t light you probably won’t
be interested in this product.” was inserted into the case along with
one “Strike Anywhere” match. The cases were then placed into small
bottles of water along with a prayer that the US Postal Service wouldn’t
open any of the packages. Apparently they didn’t because all got through.
Bean’s buyer called immediately upon receiving the packet to say the
match lit on the first strike. She also said the case was of “heirloom
quality” and exactly the type of product they were looking for. She
informed Keith that they wanted them in the fall hunting catalog.
To say it took off like a rocket is almost an understatement. Bean featured
it in a fall hunting catalog and their initial order of 300 disappeared like
sourdough hotcakes in a logging camp. By the time the season ended they had
sold over 3000 matchcases. A buyer later told Keith it was the top selling
item in that first catalog and placed in the top ten in every subsequent catalog
featuring it. The first model, arbitrarily designated as the “WGC”
(With Guttman Compass), was cataloged by Bean in 1991 and 1992.
The first manufacturing run of WGCs took place during the summer of 1991 with
each case being a virtual hand-made production. After regular business hours
Keith would attach his special tooling to a South Bend engine lathe, crank
out as many pieces as physical endurance would allow, then remove the tooling
in order to be ready for the next days’ job shop work. It was time consuming
and horribly inefficient but the only option at the time.
All tooling was home grown, each form-cutting tool and liquid-cooled drill
bit ground and polished free-hand and then hardened by the tried and true
guesswork method, since Keith has neither the background nor equipment for
proper tool and die manufacturing. But like Edison’s quest for the perfect
light bulb filament, each failure contributed to the volume of knowledge of
what wouldn’t work.
Eventually hunger and perseverance triumphed over ignorance and lack of experience,
resulting in an acceptable manufacturing process and product, and the K&M
matchcase was launched into what was to be a stormy future.
By the second year of production it was becoming obvious that the compasses
obtained from Guttman had a serious design defect. The needle supporting the
dial would come loose from the housing, fall over, and render the compass
completely useless. The numbers were never very large and Bean’s buyer
wasn’t concerned but to Keith it was absolutely unthinkable to sell
someone a survival tool with a near 1% failure rate, likening it to “selling
them a single engine plane with the assurance that it’ll work 99 times
out of a hundred.” At that time Keith informed Bean that due to the
unacceptable compass failure rate and the manufacturer’s failure to
correct the problem he would no longer supply the matchcases with the Guttman
import, a very painful and costly decision but one that maintained the integrity
and reputation of the matchcase.
During the two-year search for a compass K&M did receive one sample of
a brand new Silva model from Johnson Camping (now Johnson Worldwide Associates)
that was being developed for British military pilots. The sample had an undampened
airplane-shaped pointer with a luminous dot and no cardinal points –
one small step above a floating cork with a magnetized needle stuck through
it. Orders for more were postponed repeatedly until Johnson finally informed
K&M that Silva was working on an improved version that would be out “shortly”.
Two that were vastly different from the initial prototype were finally obtained
in January of 1990, but it was 1992 before an additional 200 units were obtained.
With the acquisition of the Silva compasses matchcases were made to fit and
sent out to prospective buyers, each again packed in a bottle of water and
containing a note and a match. Again the buyers at Bean were impressed and
enthusiastic about having the cases back in the catalog.
An interesting side story is that one of the boxes containing a sample case
remained unopened in a Bass Pro buyer’s office for over 6 months, when
it was passed on to some personal friends of Keith’s, who called to
tell him they opened it, removed the match, and watched in disbelief as it
lit on the first strike.
The following year Cabela’s picked up the matchcase and between them
and Beans generated about 9000 sales. The next year saw 14,000 go out the
doors and the following year, 1994, K&M sold 23,000 matchcases. With numbers
growing like that Keith and Marge decided to sell their repair shop and move
back to the tiny town of Elk River, Idaho, where they had lived before purchasing
the Troy business and where they had property.
The spring of ’95 was borderline insanity what with trying to move most
of their equipment to a new location while trying to convert a garage into
a shop suitable for manufacturing, a task that had to be accomplished without
dropping the ball on existing orders that Bean’s and Cabela’s
already had in the hopper. The moving of each piece of equipment had to be
planned to minimize down time and maximize production.
Somehow it all came together and by mid-summer everything was humming fairly
smoothly – until Johnson Worldwide informed Keith that Silva, with whom
Johnson had exclusive import rights for the US and Canada and whose name Johnson
had exclusive rights to in the US and Canada, was discontinuing the compass
model that K&M was dependent upon for their matchcase.
For K&M the timing was lousy and the news devastating, making it necessary
for Keith to call both Bean’s and Cabela’s with the news that
the matchcase would have to be dropped from the fall catalogs due to compass
unavailability. The only up side of the situation was that K&M got the
word barely in time to inform the companies before their catalogs went to
press, thereby averting an expensive boo boo for them. Keith assured both
companies that Johnson indicated they would be up and running with a new compass
model within a few months at most.
K&M finally received the new model Silva compasses in the summer of ’97
and could tell immediately that they were vastly inferior to the preceding
version. The new model was considerably thinner, lacked the sapphire bearing
of the previous version, and the dial on many was poorly balanced, making
it difficult to position the case just right for it to swing without binding.
Unable to locate an alternate source of small compasses K&M resumed production
with the Silva compass, many of which failed to pass Marge’s strict
standards for performance and were returned to Johnson for replacement.
About this time Johnson decided to catalog the matchcase, the only product
they have ever cataloged that they did not own outright. Keith agreed to a
price and a year’s trial run, after which everything about the arrangement
would be reevaluated by both parties and adjusted as needed. He also agreed
to leave the K&M headstamp off of the cases, the only cases K&M has
ever manufactured without their name on them. Johnson marketed them under
the Silva name, logo, and packaging.
Long before the end of the agreed upon year Keith and Marge realized that
going through a distributor created more problems than it solved. They found
themselves working 3 times as hard for less money, a situation created by
the need to discount the wholesale price at least 25%, hire extra help, increased
tooling costs, more wear and tear on the equipment, etc. An effort to negotiate
a more realistic price schedule resulted in an ugly divorce between Johnson
and K&M.