Citrus Crates’ Fanciful Art a Sweet Lure for Collectors

For Nancy Stalmaster of North Hollywood, a $4 picture of an orange grove is both a new art piece for her den wall and the beginning of a hobby she said “is real historical.”

For Raymond Soper of Claremont, a $110 lithograph of the head of a German shepherd with “Strongheart Fancy Oranges” bannered on top is another rare piece to add to his 1,000-plus-piece collection.

For $3 to $300, slices of California nostalgia were bought and traded Saturday in Sherman Oaks during a meeting of the Citrus Label Society, a small but burgeoning club of hobbyists dedicated to virtual works of art that, from about 1890 to 1956, were slapped on the sides of wooden orange, lemon and grapefruit crates.

“These labels were made for one purpose: They were striving to attract people,” said Gordon McClelland, co-author of a collectors’ book on orange-crate labels. “What worked in 1920 to get someone to buy a box of oranges is still working today.”

Collectors Grow

The Citrus Label Society boasts more than 300 members throughout the country. As time passes since the printing of the last crate label, there seem to be more collectors, said L. B. Hudson, the group’s president. In the mid-1950s wooden crates were replaced with cheaper, pre-printed cardboard boxes.

“Labels that sold for 50 cents three years ago are now going for $3,” Hudson said. “I know this is catching on when I get calls from people from New York who want to start a California orange label collection.”

Thousands of different label images and millions of labels were used by growers during the 66 years that orange growers identified their goods with brand names like Atlas, with a picture of a man carrying the earth on his back, and Tiger Head, with a close-up of a vicious-looking, fanged big cat.

“Some of them don’t even have a picture of an orange on them and it’s hard to say what the growers were thinking when they used those labels,” Soper said.

Three ‘Periods’

McClelland has identified three “periods” of orange-crate labels.

He calls the time up to 1920 the “naturalistic” period because labels depicted detailed scenic views of Indian villages, California missions and orange groves. Paul Revere brand oranges, its crates showing the Colonial man racing on horseback, were meant to lure Easterners to this “new” fruit.

“Then people realized they were going to have to start showing the orange on the box,” McClelland said, and the labels became more like posters. Labels from the second period, 1920 to 1935, showed pretty ladies with bobbed hair eating oranges. During this time, Hollywood, Film Star and Actor brand oranges appeared.

During the last period, roughly 1935 to 1955, labels generally were more modern-looking with simple bold letters and pictures of the fruit, McClelland said. But even then, especially during World War II, the vivid images persisted. They included such military-looking labels as Convoy, showing a tank, and Over There, showing soldiers.

Thematic Collections

Hobbyists now seem to stick to thematic collections, such as flowers, animals or Indians, Hudson said.

People like 80-year-old Soper, who has worked in the citrus industry all his life, began his collection by looking through the attics and back shelves of packing houses. Others, like Linda Mackie of Huntington Beach, have turned citrus labels into a business, selling them at fashionable malls.

“People can identify with the cities, the pictures on the labels. That’s why they like them,” Soper said. “You’d be surprised how contagious this collecting can get.”