A friend sent me a link to a website I was unfamiliar with. It’s the Internet Craftsmanship Museum page on a fellow by the name of Philip Warren.

The title of Mr. Warren’s page is The Matchstick Fleet. Mr. Warren has constructed over 450 ships using only matchsticks and matchboxes for his models. He started in 1948 and is still at it. Most of the ships are either American or British and span the years from WW2 to the present.

I want to encourage readers to visit Mr. Warren’s page in order to grasp the man’s talent and passion in constructing his incredible models. Here’s some stats and few pictures plus a You Tube video to whet you appetite:

  The Fleet by the Numbers

450 = Number of ships modeled

1,200 = Number of Aircraft modeled

1,500 = number of matchsticks used in an average size ship

2 months = Time to build an average size ship

5,000/200 = Number of matchsticks and number of match boxes used to make a larger ship

1 Year = Time needed to build a large ship

650,000 = Total number of matchsticks used to build the whole fleet

(Top) USS Roark
(Middle) USS Nimitz
(Bottom) USS O. H. Perry

HMS King George V