A French man attempted to build the tallest matchstick sculpture and spent eight years creating a 23.6-foot model of the Eiffel Tower using 706,900 matchsticks and over 50 pounds of glue. However, the Guinness Book of World Records disqualified his attempt, stating that he had used the wrong type of matchsticks. They informed him that the matches were not commercially available and did not meet the criteria to be recognized as matchsticks. They also mentioned that the matches could not be cut, disassembled, or distorted beyond recognition. The current record holder is Toufic Daher from Lebanon, who built a 21.4-foot matchstick Eiffel Tower in 2009 using 6 million matches. Plaud’s replica is about two feet taller than Daher’s.
Guinness will review Plaud’s tower after all
In response to the situation, Mark McKinley, director of Guinness’ central records services, acknowledged that they may have been too quick to dismiss Plaud’s structure and stated that they will reach out to the record holder again and review rules for similar records as a priority to see what can be done. USA TODAY has sought comments from Guinness World Records and Plaud regarding the status of the review.
‘Since December 2015, Plaud has been long at work at making the tower match by match, according to French newspaper Le Parisien. He purchased matches at the supermarket and removed the sulfur heads of each one, which proved to be a frustrating process. Eventually, he reached a deal with a manufacturer and received 33-pound boxes of headless matches. However, the matches could not be bought by regular customers, leading to the Guinness dispute. He completed the project on Dec. 27, 2023, which coincidentally is the 100th anniversary of French civil engineer Gustave Eiffel’s death, who developed the iconic Paris tower named after him.
