★ On one of the walls at the North Star bar, there is a wooden sign "Manufactured by North Star", with an address that's been partially "whited out". This is a reproduction (at many times original size) of a label that was painted on the mech panel inside a North Star pinball machine.
The following documents that address, 400 Dubé Street East.
★ According to the article in Canadian Coin Box magazine (July-Aug 1993), the company was formed in 1949, and stopped production in 1951. The factory was inside an old army barracks in the Pointe-aux-Trembles arrondissement...
★ Here is an aerial photo taken sometime between 1947-1949 which shows the rows of barracks. I've indicated the approximate location of the North Star one.
★ For comparison, here's a Google Earth satellite image in 2016:
Technically, the address is in the Montreal East district, since Pointe-aux-Trembles actually starts 2 blocks East of Dubé street.
★ Checking in Lovell's annuals (a kind of phone book / yellow pages), I find no listing for North Star Coin Machine Co. in the business section, nor anything for the street address. I'm not sure that one had to pay to be listed, because it contains stuff that seems to be merely informative (for example, for address 420, between 1948-1951 it says "Sendel, Louis (storage)").
★ In 1947, there was nothing listed at all on Dubé Street between Ste-Catherine and Sherbrooke, so I guess the army still possessed them.
★ 1948-1949, the listing for 400 is "Masse Refrigeration"
★ 1950-1951, no listing.
★ So alas, there is no record in that publication of them being there during the production period of 1949-1951, nor any explanation as to why the address was painted over in the machines that were produced at that very address.
★ Researched and written by James Schidlowsky, May 2016. Revised July 2018.
References:★ Lovell's Annuals, covering 1842-2010, digitized and made available online by the BANQ (Bibliothèque et Archives National du Québec): https://www.banq.qc.ca/plateformes-numeriques/collection-dannuaires-lovell-de-montreal-et-sa-region-1842-2010/
★ As of this writing, old insurance maps of the area have not been yet digitized by the BANQ. Perhaps eventually. These would be under Insurance plan of the city of Montreal, Quebec, Canada, Volume XIX (i.e. 19). They have two years: 1951 and 1966, and would be found here: http://numerique.banq.qc.ca/p/carte_index_MTL.html
★ Robert Baraké's article on the North Star Coin Machine Co. and personal meeting with Jacques Tremblay: http://www.montrealpinball.com/blog/?view=plink&id=62
★ Circa 1947-1949 aerial photos of Montreal: http://donnees.ville.montreal.qc.ca/dataset/vues-aeriennes-archives