When you purchase a copyrighted work, you are generally just purchasing the single work for personal use and you are not purchasing any rights in the work. All copyrights in the work would remain with the copyright holder/creator.
If the Japanese matchbox covers are being offered for sale through Getty Images, you can purchase them and you can resell them later, but you cannot infringe on any rights that may still exist in the works by reproducing the images or creating derivatives of the works or by using them in a commercial manner. You would first need to obtain permission from or a license from the copyright holder (if the works are not in the public domain and, therefore, free to use in the manner you intend).
Because the matchbox covers originated in and were created in Japan, Japanese copyright laws would apply. The copyright laws of Japan differ in significant ways from the laws in the U.S., including the laws regarding public domain materials.
You can check out
http://www.cric.or.jp/cric_e/clj/index.html for the copyright laws in Japan and compare it to the laws in the U.S. (
http://www.copyright.gov) for a better idea of the differences.
If the sale of the matchbox covers is through Getty Images, probably your first best step would be to inquire of Getty Images what rights, if any, are being conveyed to you through the sale of the covers. There may be no lingering rights in the work or there may be rights that need to be licensed prior to using the images in a commercial manner.
Getty Images offers various licensing agreements through their site for use of the images that appear there, so you may still be able to arrange for the use of the images for your commercial purposes even if they are not in the public domain.
Good luck.
