Photo du jour: Ghost sign revealed at Rosemont/St. Michel

14 comments

1. Old Chum was an Imperial Tobacco brand, which was a Montreal-based company. Don’t know about the date though, I’d venture a guess around the 1930’s.

2. Ça va faire plaisir aux opposants au nouveau CHUM…

3. Here’s a couple links to pictures of the fire that burned down the buildings:

   http://www.coderouge.com/interventions/photo.phpphoto=./689/orig/11.jpg\

   http://www.coderouge.com/interventions/photo.php?photo=./689/orig/10.jpg

4. correct url for the 1st picture…sorry

   http://www.coderouge.com/interventions/photo.php?photo=./689/orig/11.jpg

5. L’intensité du bleu est impressionnant!

6. Imperial is still based here.

7. The colour is remarkably bright for what has to be a pretty old sign. Very cool.

8. Here is a very interesting link (and website in general) on the origin of this sign:

   http://shlorp.wordpress.com/2009/05/05/tabac-old-chum/

9. I live a couple of streets down from there! There was a Van Houtte on the corner which had closed just before the fire and was being renovated.

10. If memory serves me well, Old Chum was not
    a tobacco for smoking. It was chewing tobacco.

    It used to be sold with some prominence near
    the register because it came in small tins and
    would be more readily visible to the potential customer.

    I seem to remember Club tobacco also.

    I can’t remember seeing much chewing tobacco product
    for sale after 1980.

11. Back in the Seventies I chewed tobacco, and, as I recall, Chum chewing tobacco then came in ‘bars’ called ‘plugs’ with the tobacco soaked in a molasses-like substance and pressed into rectangular bars, each bar wrapped in cellophane and packaged in a tobacco tin which was creme with a red label stating Old Chum.

    Another brand of chewing tobacco was ‘Club’, link showing Club chewing tobacco can.

    http://www.diannevetromile.com/A112602B4.jpg

    This type of tin was opened with a ‘key’ attached to uppen lid, which was then broken off and used to pull off a strip of metal around can as shown.

    Coffee used to come packaged this way. Corn beef still does.

    Copenhagen, which was called Snoose in the West came in cardboard-bottomed puck-like containers, the top in pressed tin, with powdered moist tobacco chew inside.

    The top had the company logo pressed into it and was plated in a brilliant sliver-like metal.

    http://www.sixthseal.com/archive/July2005/copenhagen_long_cut.jpg

    Copenhagen tins were packaged in metal tubes of ten? similar to the potato chips of today, or as how tennis balls were marketed.

    The tin of ten was also brightly painted in Copenhagen colours.

    Copenhagen tins of ten were used to store change in.

    Loggers and sawmill workers were not allowed to smoke in saw or planer mills or the bush account fire hazard, so they ‘chewed’ instead.

    The American Copenhagen came in the tin-topped cardboard containers long after the Canadian version switched to plastic.

    The cardboard version would collapse if you sat on it or leaned on the fender looking into the engine of a truck with one in the shirt pocket.

    Cursing would erupt if the tin fell into the engine fan, or down into a oil sump from the front shirt pocket.

    Old Chum once marketed smoking tobacco, as is shown here.

    Top of tin twists off, and has Tobacco Company crest embossed in it.

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/28389839@N00/2465763802/

    As kids we would melt lead from old telephone cables, tire shops or plumbing ( Word Plum as in plumbing, comes from Latin for Lead. ), and pour the molten lead into an embossed tobacco tin top.

    When it cooled, one had a lead medallion with a raised pattern on it.

12. Thanks lococo!

13. The building on which the sign is painted looks a lot like it dates between 1928-50. Rosemont/St-Michel was developed in post WW2, was it not??

14. It was a Van Houtte