---
license: other
license_name: mixed-provenance-unverified
pretty_name: Indian Matchbox Labels
task_categories:
- text-to-image
language:
- en
size_categories:
- n<1K
tags:
- matchbox
- india
- vintage
- style
- lora-training
configs:
- config_name: default
  data_files:
  - split: train
    path:
    - "*.jpg"
    - metadata.csv
---

# Indian Matchbox Labels

197 vintage Indian matchbox labels, one label per image, each with a hand-written English caption.
It was assembled to train the two style LoRAs in
[spearb0lt/Indian-Matchbox-Art-Style-Text-to-Image-Generator](https://huggingface.co/spearb0lt/Indian-Matchbox-Art-Style-Text-to-Image-Generator)
(trigger word `phlmx`); the training notebooks are on
[GitHub](https://github.com/spearb0lt/Indian-Matchbox-Art-Style-Text-to-Image-Generator).

## Contents

| file | what |
|---|---|
| `mb_001.jpg` to `mb_197.jpg` | the labels, JPEG, short side 1 039 to 2 048 px (134 portrait, 63 landscape or square) |
| `mb_001.txt` to `mb_197.txt` | the caption of each image, same name (the kohya convention, read by the notebooks) |
| `metadata.csv` | `file_name`, `text` (the caption), `source`, `source_url`: what the dataset viewer and `load_dataset` read |
| `sources.csv` | per image: size, caption, source, source URL, original file name, and processing notes |

```python
from datasets import load_dataset
ds = load_dataset("spearb0lt/Indian-Matchbox-Labels", split="train")   # columns: image, text, source, source_url
```

## Captions

Each caption describes the **content and the printed text**, not the style, so that a LoRA's
trigger word, not ordinary words, absorbs the look. The shape is
`a matchbox label, <what is shown>, <background colour>, headline '<main word>', text '<other printed text>'`:

> a matchbox label, a white lion lying on a blue ribbon in front of a yellow sunburst, red
> background, headline 'LION', text 'Safety Matches Best Quality' and 'Pugalgiri Match Works, Dindigul'

Text in Indian scripts is named (for example "Malayalam lettering at the top") rather than
transcribed.

## Sources and processing

| source | images |
|---|---|
| Wikimedia Commons (scans from the MatchboxPosters collection) | 131 |
| Internet Archive (matchboxpostersarchive) | 46 |
| collected from other websites (original site not recorded) | 20 |

* **Upscaling.** Most originals are small scans, so 186 images were upscaled 2x or 4x with
  `caidas/swin2SR-compressed-sr-x4-48` followed by Lanczos resizing; 11 are at their original size.
  Each image's note in `sources.csv` says which.
* **Cropping.** Two images were cropped to the label.
* **Duplicates.** Checked with SHA-256, a perceptual hash and DINO image embeddings; none remain.

## Licence and intended use

The labels are historical commercial prints. Where the source file name gives a date, it is mostly
"circa 1940s" (103 images), with some "circa 1920s" (17), "mid-century" (15) and "1960s" (2); 60
have no date. These dates come from the uploaders and were not verified. Their copyright status has
not been verified: the Wikimedia Commons and Internet Archive items carry the uploaders' own
licence statements, and the 20 images from other websites have unknown rights. The dataset is
shared **for research and education only**; check the rights of individual images before any
other use. The per-image `source_url` lets you do that.