Yeah, for the large, wooden strike anywhere matches. The lady of the house needed a match handy every morning when she stoked up the breakfast fire in the wood stove. The paper/cardboard match box had kind of like sandpaper on the edges to scratch the matches on to lite them. That's why the holes are in the edge of the match safe, so the sand would be exposed. The end of the box was opened so the matches would feed out, but the box was inserted into the safe so the edges were available for lighting the match.