Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(a) a very small house, or room.

1970

A. Sillitoe Start in Life (1979) 126: I [...] reckoned only on a short walk in the surrounding streets before going back to my matchbox for a hard-earned kip.

(b) a small car.

1916		C.T. Clark diary 2 Dec. in Soldier Letters (1919) 55: [W]e got to the foot of our first hill. Here we found a long line of heavily loaded camions waiting their turn for the Jeffery tractors to pull them up. Our little match boxes got up without any trouble at all.
1961		V.S. Naipaul House For Mr Biswas 491: Matchbox, eh. English car, you know.

(a) approx. 10g (½oz) of marijuana (price varying as to chronology), orig. as much as would fill a matchbox; thus cop a match, to buy that much marijuana.

1946		Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues in Lingeman (1969) n.p.: He gave us a cut-rate price, a tobacco tin full-up with muta for two dollars or a Diamond matchbox full for four or five.
1967		R. Conot Rivers of Blood 55: A matchbox went for $7. But, more often than not, he would sell single joints for 50¢ apiece [ibid.] 228: He had bought his kilo [of marijuana] and broken it up into cans ($7.00), and half-cans and matchboxes ($3.50), and started developing his own runners.
1969		R.R. Lingeman Drugs from A to Z (1970) 166: matchbox [...] A measure of marijuana for sale; about 1/5 ounce, enough for rolling five to eight cigarettes.
1972		E. Folb Urban Black Argot 135: Cop a Match to secure a matchbox of marijuana from someone.
1975		G. Underwood ‘Razorback Sl.’ in AS L:1/2 62: matchbox n Quantity of marijuana, approximately what will fill a penny matchbox.
1980		E. Folb Runnin’ Down Some Lines 170: Man, in them olden days you could score a match. No more.
1989		J. Morton Lowspeak.
2002		E. Damerson in Dusted Mag. at Trikont.com 🌐 [They] break out the matchbox as part of an abysmal, post-breakup self-destruction streak.