1 Piece of Ice - Georges Berichon Montreal, Quebec

Ice tickets — issued by individual vendors to prepay delivery of a set quantity of ice — were a practical necessity in Canadian cities before mechanical refrigeration became universal in working-class homes. Berichon operated in Montreal's competitive ice trade, where dozens of small merchants issued similar cardboard tokens to lock in customers and simplify the delivery accounting. The thin cardboard format was universal among ice dealers; the tickets were punched or collected at delivery, and few survived in any quantity precisely because they were meant to be consumed in the transaction.