Canadian Match Holder-striker

[Tinman]

I recently added this pottery match holder from the Halifax Breweries Ltd. to the accumulation, I didn't know anything of the Halifax breweries Ltd. but after a bit of research I found that it had been formed in 1895 by an English syndicate to purchase 5 maritime breweries, 4 in Halifax and one on Prince Edward Island. I couldn't find any info on why or when the Halifax Breweries Ltd. was dissolved but it seems around 1908 Oland's Breweries was running at least two of the breweries.

I beat the seller down a bit because of the chip on the outer rim but after doing my research I realized that it was a miracle that the item survived at all, on Dec 6th 1917 this horrific incident called the Halifax Explosion took place,

Time Mag 1975

Three of the four breweries in Halifax and Dartmouth were pretty much leveled....
This picture is of one of them shortly after the explosion,

Dec 1917

This colour picture appears to be taken of the same brewery a short time later after clean up had commenced,

Spring 1918

For the complete and more details on this story check out The Halifax Explosion on Wikipedia....

STAY SAFE!