Skate, Ice
Dartmouth Heritage Museum
All rights reserved.
| Object Name: | Skate, Ice |
|---|---|
| Category: | Sports Equipment |
| Material: | Leather and steel |
| Accession Number: | 2010.069.001a&b |
| Other Geographical Data: | [44.669232762955,-63.563461303711] |
| Culture: | Canadian |
| Earliest Production Date: | 1864-01-01 |
| Latest Production Date: | 2010-12-31 |
| Description: | Pair of black leather Ladies Beaver brand skates, made by Starr Mfg. Well worn and beat up, lots of scuff marks. Brown laces are broken and knotted. Boots are size 5 |
| Narrative: | Donor is descendant of John Forbes, who patented the spring skate |
| History of Use: | The Starr Manufacturing Company was originally created in 1861 as a steel manufacturing company that produced nails. The company was founded by Dartmouth businessman, John Starr. They quickly turned to producing and selling metal skates in 1863 after they hired John Forbes. Forbes, along with Thomas Bateman designed and patented a new skate design that featured a spring-loaded skate that attached to the bottom of boots. With this new skate, the company found great success with their clamp style skate becoming the most popular skate on the market. Skating became a very popular pastime in Halifax and Dartmouth and the company produced a variety of skate styles. The company is believed to have produced and sold over 11 million skates. Starr Manufacturing experienced some difficulties with other companies producing similar styles of skates after they neglected to renew their patent. After some years of business highs and lows with their skate sales, the company finally closed their skate department in 1939. They continued to manufacture steel products, along with chrome and Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastic products until they officially closed in 1996. |
| Height: | 22 cm |
| Length: | 29 cm |
| Width: | 7 cm |
| Institution: |
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| Institution City: | Dartmouth |
| Institution Province: | Nova Scotia |