Steacy's Limited Kingston, Ontario

At the recent Kingston Stamp Festival, I roved, roamed and ravaged the Kingston Stamp Club consignment table looking for cheap sorting fun. I did not leave disappointed.

With the colder months approaching, I found a $2 consignment lot containing some interesting stamps. I noticed the inside of the box's rubber-banded lid was labelled "Steacy's Limited Kingston, Ontario". I knew this was a Kingston department store, once on Princess Street and later in the Kingston Shopping Centre, and that my mother-in-law had once worked at the downtown store. A comprehensive history of this storied Kingston store is beyond the scope of this blog, however...

Once I'd removed the box's contents, I was about to recycle the box but had second thoughts. Maybe someone would like it as a local historical artifact? I offered the box on social media and found that, indeed, several people were interested in it.

So just today, a member of the Steacy family picked up the box. They have a room in their house devoted to the history of the family business, of which this box would become a part. 

This box may have been 50+ years old. In terms of pyramids, hanging gardens and castles, that's not very historic. But in Kingston, it nevertheless has historic and sentimental value!