8 extraordinary models made from millions of matchsticks, some of which have been featured in Ripley’s ‘Believe It or Not.

Minas Tirith, the City of Kings
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Minas Tirith, the City of Kings from J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord Of The Rings trilogy is painstakingly being recreated using matchsticks (420,000 sticks to date) by wood-loving Patrick Acton. The project started in March, 2007, and Patrick expects to be completed by late 2010.


Notre Dame Cathedral
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Check out this amazing scale model of the Notre Dame Cathedral ! Someone spent a lot of hours putting this 174,00 matchsticks together!



Harry Potter’s school
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No spells or magic wands were used to create this incredible matchstick model of Harry Potter’s school.

Artist Patrick Acton painstakingly used over 600,000 matchsticks to recreate Hogwarts School of Witchcraft.



NASA’s space shuttle Challenger
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Artist Patrick has also built an out-of-this-world replica of NASA’s space shuttle Challenger.



Oil Rig Out Of Four Billion Matchsticks
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Former Oil Rig Worker Spent 15 Years Making Model Of Oil Rig Out Of Four Billion Matchsticks
USS Forrestal aircraft carrier
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The model is currently owned by the “Ripley’s Believe It or Not!”
museum located in Branson, Missouri and was built by Mr. Patrick Acton
of Matchmaker Entertainment in Gladbrook, Iowa. He created this model
completely from ordinary kitchenmatchsticks ( 55,000
) with the exception of 1,500 toothpicks which were used as dowels and
handrail posts, and is held together with regular Elmor’s wood glue. It
was completed between February and July 1993, 700 hours of labor were
needed, including drawing, sawing, gluing, and sanding.



Taj Mahal
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Retired cabinet-maker Ron Savory has created an exact replica of the Taj Mahal out of 10,000 wooden match-sticks.
Mr Savory, 70, says the model, which took him eight months to make, is
a labour of love for his wife, Ann, and was inspired by reading a book
about the building’s history.



London’s Tower Bridge


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Michael Williams spent 10 painstaking years designing and building a famous London landmark…out of matchsticks.

The 41-year-old road layer from Shoebury in Essex created a complete replica of London’s Tower Bridge out of 1.6million matches