Paris Reuters —Guinness World Records on Thursday told Frenchman Richard Plaud that his 7.2 meter (23.6 feet) matchstick Eiffel Tower was a record height, a day after rejecting it for using the wrong matches. “For eight years, I’ve always thought that I was building the tallest matchstick structure,” he told Reuters. However, Guinness World Records initially told him he didn’t make the cut as he hadn’t used matches that were “commercially available.”The tower is nearly 24 feet tall. Richard Plaud/ReutersPlaud started off by using commercial matches, cutting the head off each. Tired of this tedious process, he asked the manufacturer if he could buy just the wooden sticks without the head, prompting Guinness to refuse his record.

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