Retail cabinet head for parts from defunct company A. Bélanger!

Today being the final day of the 2013 dumpster diving season, here's what's probably the greatest find of the year value-wise!

I found this thing at the recycling centre earlier this year and I initally identified it as the head from an appliance. A. Bélanger Ltd of Montmagny QC was founded as a foundry in 1867 but eventually expanded their operations to stoves in the early 20th century and appliances later in the late 40s. The company has been taken over by the Canadian Admiral before being a victim of the latter's bankruptcy in 1982. That year The Inglis company took control of the whole corporation and the Bélanger name knew a faith similar to Westinghouse (pretty much in the same years too!).

Afterwards I noticed the head had absolutely nothing aside from a preheat fluorescent circuit. No remains of controls like holes, nothing under the glass front panel, not a single thing! I suspected it to previously be a part of an appliance with its controls somewhere else but if it was so the head wouldn't have its own power cord, in addition to likely being significantly larger!

Therefore the only logical hypothesis I see is that this was the part of a retail cabinet, very likely for appliance parts. If so, this makes it a quite rare piece of history! Unlike the appliances, retail cabinets were only manufactured in a limited run, probably in the three-digit range, a few thousands at the most. Then how many of them survived to this day? Who knows!

The tube inside is a Westinghouse F14T12/CW I found last week.