Handelmij Hendjik Makassar Rooster Vintage Japanese Matchbox Label Wrapping Paper

The Story

This is one of the most historically specific labels in the archive. "Handelmij Hendjik" arcs across the top of each tile, the word Handelmij a contraction of Handelsmaatschappij, the Dutch word for trading company, and "Makassar" sits beneath it, naming the port city on the southwestern tip of Sulawesi, now known as Ujung Pandang, one of the great trading hubs of the Dutch East Indies. At the base, Chinese characters read 恒益公司, Hendjik and Co., the company name written for the Chinese merchant community that was central to commerce in Makassar and throughout the Dutch colonial archipelago. Between them, the label's central image: a rooster head in close profile alongside a revolver, both rendered in careful dark engraving against a deep pink and red ground.

The combination of a rooster and a pistol is unusual in export matchbox label art and speaks to the specific commercial culture of Makassar, a city with a long history of trade, conflict and the kind of frontier commerce where both symbols carried weight. The label was almost certainly ordered by the Hendjik trading company directly from a Japanese match manufacturer, a common arrangement in the Taisho era when Dutch colonial businesses commissioned custom labels for their own branded goods. The Chinese text was for the local Peranakan Chinese merchant community who would have been among the primary buyers and distributors.

As a repeat pattern on wrapping paper the label tiles against its own deep pink ground, the rows of roosters and revolvers creating a composition that is bold, strange and entirely unlike anything else in contemporary gift wrap. The QR code and white margin at the top and bottom edges are included as noted by the supplier.

Who Is It For

This paper is for someone with a serious interest in the history of Southeast Asian trade and the visual culture it produced. They know what Makassar means, or they are about to find out, and either way the label opens a conversation about Dutch colonial commerce, Japanese manufacturing, Chinese merchant networks and the specific moment in the early twentieth century when all of those things intersected on a matchbox. It is also simply one of the most visually arresting sheets in the collection: the deep pink ground tiling edge to edge is genuinely striking.

About the Collection

Every design in the Ichinichi Collection is sourced from a personal archive of original Japanese matchbox labels spanning 1880 to 1940. The Handelmij Hendjik label is one of the archive's rarest pieces, a custom commission from a Dutch colonial trading company in Makassar, Sulawesi, bearing the company name in both Dutch and Chinese for a market where both mattered. It is the kind of label that survives in ones and twos, and this archive holds one.

Product Details

Material: 90gsm fine art paper. Sizes: 30 x 36 inches, 30 x 72 inches and 30 x 180 inches. Print: One-sided, high-definition. Finish: Matte or glossy. Delivered rolled. Note: Includes white spaces at top and bottom edges with a bar and QR code.