Morse's Tea Building Signage

[OldDartmouthMark]

While we're talking about Morse's, why not a look at their product from 1942? I'm sure there were many conversations about our troops overseas while sipping on a cup of Morse's, when this photo was taken...



https://novascotia.ca/archives/EastC...es.asp?ID=3363

[OldDartmouthMark]

OK, we've talked about the age of the cars in the photo with the neon sign, and possibly solved the mystery of the 'sloped ironstone' on the back (south) side of the building. What else...

More on the neon sign...
Y'know? Originally I figured the neon sign was an artifact of the 1950s or 60s when neon was big, and any business worth its salt would have to include a neon sign on its building.

But...
- Looking at some of the Cogswell construction photos from 1968-69 on the Halifax Municipal Archives site, I noticed the Morse's sign is still the painted version that had been there for many years!









The painted sign is also visible on this Municipal Archives shot of the fire next door from March 1968 (seems like back in the day, every building was on fire at one time or another):



Same with this shot from October 1967:


Another Cogswell progress shot from 1968:


So, the neon sign was installed in the 1970s? Hmmm...

We've established that Stephen Archibald's pic was from 1977 (confirmed by the cars' year models)...


Well here's another Municipal Archives shot from sometime in the 1970s that shows the neon sign installed (light letters on a dark sign):


There's a shot on this Chronicle Herald article of the neon sign from 1975:


So, Morse's got its neon sign a little later than others, sometime in the early 1970s. Anybody remember when it was removed?

Back to the original topic of this post... why the hell did they decide to paint over an iconic sign that had literally been there since the 1920s? We'll probably never know.

[K-Man]

Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark

Mystery solved?

Hahaha! Well, whaddaya know!? Mark man nice work.....that's awesome. I guess sometimes the answer you're looking for is actually when the building is off hiding in the background. You got a sharp eye. I never would have picked that out as being Morse's. I was suspecting the former roof line of an adjacent building had caused them to leave the south wall that way during the repairs. Going down that road I found this image below dated 1959 and by the looks of it that building beside Morse's was probably there just out of sight in that 1901 image you posted. It's slightly visible in the image looking down Upper Water St. from the 40's as well, which by the way I had no idea that Morse's at one time had a sign on their roof like that. Great pics. So, yeah man...mystery solved! Thanks for that.


Source: HRM Archives - https://gencat1.eloquentsystems.com/...iu2qk1ssp1.jpg

As far as having a higher resolution photo to post that's the only one that I have. There was no digital copy available at the NS Archives so I had to use my phone. Until you straightened the image out I hadn't realized it was as skewed as it was. I thought it maybe had something to do with their photocopy or with with camera equipment of the time. I'm still pretty new to the forums so I'm working on figuring out how I can post some larger images. For now though I zoomed in, cropped, and added some filters to the sign above the door on the north facade. I'm still leaning towards it saying "Canada" on both north and west doors but in all fairness it's hard to tell. If that's what it actually says though then I'm guessing it maybe has something to do with shipping and receiving orders from within the country? Anyone have any thoughts?




Oh yeah, I did a little looking around and with the chrome trim on the back, the tails, and the stripe I think that Gremlin falls between '73-'75. I can tell a first gen Camaro from a mile away (I do love a '69 RS) but my knowledge of the Gremlin is far below the national average, haha!

[K-Man]

Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark

So, Morse's got its neon sign a little later than others, sometime in the early 1970s. Anybody remember when it was removed?

Ahhh, well look at that! I've seen that photo a few times and never noticed the sign. Nice.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Hey, I enjoy this type of thing. I actually fluked on finding the of the south side face of the building. I searched for Granville Street on the NS archives site, thinking I might catch a glimpse of the building or what was there before, and voila there it was...

Thanks for blowing up the images above the door. It does look like "Canada", and your theory seems sound, though I wonder if they would need a dedicated door for Canadian orders... one would think that they could receive any shipments at any of their doors but maybe the rules were more strict back then?

I also thought how similar it looked to "Salada", which was a Montreal-based tea company, but why would they have the name of their competitor over the door? Maybe on the company toilet as some sort of inside joke (though maybe not back then... haha), but... hmmm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salada_tea

[Keith P.]

Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark

Back to the original topic of this post... why the hell did they decide to paint over an iconic sign that had literally been there since the 1920s? We'll probably never know.

Well, they have not occupied the building for a long, long time. The signage no longer represents the tenants inside. If by some chance another tea company moved in I suspect having the name of a competitor on the building would not be very popular.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

Well, they have not occupied the building for a long, long time. The signage no longer represents the tenants inside. If by some chance another tea company moved in I suspect having the name of a competitor on the building would not be very popular.

Of course you're right from a strict business perspective.

However...
...that signage had become a landmark of downtown Halifax to the point that it was (and is) known as the Morse's building. Nobody ever calls it Jerusalem Warehouse, for example, it's the Morse's building. Where is Baton Rouge? It's in the Morse's building - thusly I would argue that the signage would not be considered a negative to current businesses occupying the building - in fact that very namesake actually would bring some notoriety to the location, IMHO.

...I don't believe the tea business is all that cut-throat these days that a competitor would be upset about "free advertising" for Morse's, unless a tea company decided to make that their Halifax head office - which would have virtually a zero percent chance of happening. Is Morse's even a brand anymore? I can't recall seeing it in any of the stores I've been in.

...I can't believe you have lived all your life in Halifax and do not have some sentimentality for that sign.

None of the above changes that it's already been painted over, however, and will likely remain that way until it's re-painted over...

[Keith P.]

Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark

...I can't believe you have lived all your life in Halifax and do not have some sentimentality for that sign.

None of the above changes that it's already been painted over, however, and will likely remain that way until it's re-painted over...

I actually am much more sentimental for the 1970s neon version, which I remember well. That orange and white neon was sweet. Can we have that version back? Because even when Morse's was a viable company they seemed to prefer it to the painted version. It was only when their business declined and they moved out that they didn't want to maintain it any more.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

I actually am much more sentimental for the 1970s neon version, which I remember well. That orange and white neon was sweet. Can we have that version back? Because even when Morse's was a viable company they seemed to prefer it to the painted version. It was only when their business declined and they moved out that they didn't want to maintain it any more.

Hey, I'd be up for the neon version, but I don't know if anybody does that anymore. I highly doubt the owners would spring for the cost either...

[JET]

The dormers are three sided dormers, not five sided scottish dormers.
https://halifaxbloggers.ca/noticedin...ttish-dormers/

[K-Man]

Originally Posted by JET

The dormers are three sided dormers, not five sided scottish dormers.
https://halifaxbloggers.ca/noticedin...ttish-dormers/

Ahhh, yeah. Well, look at that. Seems to check out. I'll have to touch that up. Thanks!

[JET]

Originally Posted by K-Man

Ahhh, yeah. Well, look at that. Seems to check out. I'll have to touch that up. Thanks!

While I had known about Scottish dormers, it was new to me that they are also called bay window dormers.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by K-Man

Hahaha! Well, whaddaya know!? Mark man nice work.....that's awesome. I guess sometimes the answer you're looking for is actually when the building is off hiding in the background. You got a sharp eye. I never would have picked that out as being Morse's. I was suspecting the former roof line of an adjacent building had caused them to leave the south wall that way during the repairs. Going down that road I found this image below dated 1959 and by the looks of it that building beside Morse's was probably there just out of sight in that 1901 image you posted. It's slightly visible in the image looking down Upper Water St. from the 40's as well, which by the way I had no idea that Morse's at one time had a sign on their roof like that. Great pics. So, yeah man...mystery solved! Thanks for that.


Source: HRM Archives - https://gencat1.eloquentsystems.com/...iu2qk1ssp1.jpg

As far as having a higher resolution photo to post that's the only one that I have. There was no digital copy available at the NS Archives so I had to use my phone. Until you straightened the image out I hadn't realized it was as skewed as it was. I thought it maybe had something to do with their photocopy or with with camera equipment of the time. I'm still pretty new to the forums so I'm working on figuring out how I can post some larger images. For now though I zoomed in, cropped, and added some filters to the sign above the door on the north facade. I'm still leaning towards it saying "Canada" on both north and west doors but in all fairness it's hard to tell. If that's what it actually says though then I'm guessing it maybe has something to do with shipping and receiving orders from within the country? Anyone have any thoughts?




Oh yeah, I did a little looking around and with the chrome trim on the back, the tails, and the stripe I think that Gremlin falls between '73-'75. I can tell a first gen Camaro from a mile away (I do love a '69 RS) but my knowledge of the Gremlin is far below the national average, haha!

By the way, thanks for posting that pic of the building that used to occupy the lot next to the Moir's building. I can't recall ever seeing it before. By 1959 it looked pretty decrepit and appears that it was probably built around the same timeframe as the Moir's building.

Regarding photo size when posting, I don't have a subscription to a photo hosting site, so I use https://imgur.com/ which allows you to upload photos for free and post them on messageboards. It has an edit function as well, in case you don't have photoediting software on your computer, and your image is too large.

I see you use flickr. I'm not familiar with their services, but maybe they have an option to post a larger size photo? If you use imgur as I mentioned, it will post as whatever original size your photo is, and you can shrink it if it's too big.

Gremlins... AMC was always running on a tighter budget than the big 3, and thus would come out with a new design and make only minimal trim changes from year to year in an attempt to keep it fresh... Thus, it's difficult to know exactly the year unless you study what those changes are, using known imagery as your reference. Typically, I'd use the brochures on this site: http://www.oldcarbrochures.org/, or personal experience/memory, but for Gremlins I wasn't motivated to look them up. I noticed the Chrysler products because I've had personal experience with them and thus it didn't take time to look them up...

[K-Man]

No sweat man....you're welcome.

So yeah, Flickr is what I'm using right now. The issue I'm having is that it doesn't seem to provide a full URL to the original size picture - it's not including the ".jpg" at the end of the URL. I have to go and "View Page Source" on the image and get the URL from there which has the ".jpg" extension in it. That seems overly complicated to me (or I am completely overlooking something) just to post a full size image. Anyway, I don't want to get too far off topic here. I've checked the FAQ section but wasn't able to find anything. I'll have to check out "imgur" as by the sounds of it it may be a little more user friendly. Thanks!

[Keith P.]

Originally Posted by K-Man

No sweat man....you're welcome.

So yeah, Flickr is what I'm using right now. The issue I'm having is that it doesn't seem to provide a full URL to the original size picture - it's not including the ".jpg" at the end of the URL. I have to go and "View Page Source" on the image and get the URL from there which has the ".jpg" extension in it. That seems overly complicated to me (or I am completely overlooking something) just to post a full size image. Anyway, I don't want to get too far off topic here. I've checked the FAQ section but wasn't able to find anything. I'll have to check out "imgur" as by the sounds of it it may be a little more user friendly. Thanks!

Re. Flickr, ever since Yahoo sold it, it has deteriorated greatly. But you can still get the link ending with .jpg if you click on the "view all sizes" option under the download icon and select one of those, then right click on the photo that displays and select "view image" to get the link ending in .jpg.

[K-Man]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

Re. Flickr, ever since Yahoo sold it, it has deteriorated greatly. But you can still get the link ending with .jpg if you click on the "view all sizes" option under the download icon and select one of those, then right click on the photo that displays and select "view image" to get the link ending in .jpg.

KeithP thanks for posting that man, I think that's going to work just perfect! I didn't know that you could get a larger image under the "download this photo" section. I was using the default size which is a little too small. I realize this is a bit off topic as this is the Morse's thread but if you use Flickr this works really well.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Good stuff Keith! I had poked around flickr sites before and noticed the different sizing, but didn't know if that could be shared on a messageboard, since I've never had one of those accounts.

[K-Man]

MORSE'S TEAS NEON SIGN

Just throwing this up quickly to add to the collection of images. There was some discussion above about trying to find a good photo of the neon sign and a photographer by the name of Alvin Comiter had this on his website. It's probably one of the best images that I've seen and offers an interesting view of 'the new neon vs. the past paint'. He's actually got some fantastic photos of the area on his site from late 70's to late 80's all very well done in b&w.


Source: Alvin Comiter Photography - https://i0.wp.com/alvincomiter.com/w...fit=1200%2C960

[JET]

Alvin Comiter was a photo prof at NSCAD
http://alvincomiter.com/gallery/a-no...chive/halifax/

[Keith P.]

Originally Posted by JET

Alvin Comiter was a photo prof at NSCAD
http://alvincomiter.com/gallery/a-no...chive/halifax/

What a treasure trove of pictures! The Halifax ones appear to be mostly from the '80s and many of the subjects are now gone. If you right-click on those photos and "View Image" in Windows you get a larger version (though in his other galleries on that site, that unfortunately does not work). There is another gallery accessed via clicking on his name at top left which is entitled "The Early Years" which has photos from all over in the '70s which are quite interesting as well.