Match Safe, Theodore Roosevelt, 1904

Representations of Theodore Roosevelt with bears began after he famously refused to shoot a restrained bear on a 1902 hunting trip to Mississippi. This pocket match safe, sold during his 1904 presidential campaign, features multiple bears including one with glasses who looks much like the Republican candidate. Metal match safes, popular between 1870 and 1930, allowed smokers to carry friction matches without fear they would rub together and burst into flame in their pockets.

Roosevelt was running as an incumbent in 1904 having ascended to the presidency after the assassination of President William McKinley in 1901. He won a full term in his own right by defeating his Democratic challenger Alton Parker and Eugene V. Debs, a Socialist.