Countywide : Labels Seen as Posters of the Past
Gordon McClelland got hooked with citrus box labels 25 years ago as a teen-ager working after school at the old Sunkist packinghouse in Orange.
McClelland said he was drawn to the sunny images of bountiful fruit and picturesque landscapes that many citrus companies used to advertise their products during the first half of the century.
“There’s something American about them,” said McClelland, a Santa Ana author who has collected more than 8,500 different labels from around the country.
On Saturday, he will join label collectors from around the state at the Sunkist building in Sherman Oaks to view, sell and trade their labels.
Orange box labels from Orange County are featured prominently in the collections of McClelland and many other label enthusiasts. Some of the most rare and valuable ones came from orchards in Santa Ana, Villa Park and Anaheim.
Most orange labels are 10 by 11 inches. Starting in the late 19th Century, citrus companies began attaching them to the sides of wood crates as a way of distinguishing their products. The labels also served to advertise the communities where the fruit was grown, said Bob Taaffe, a collector in Los Angeles.
Labels from Orange County often depicted blue skies and sun-drenched orchards--tempting images designed to lure Easterners out West.
“Many have a natural California theme,” Taaffe said. “We have them from practically everywhere in Orange County except the coastal areas.”
In time, the labels grew more complex and colorful. By the 1920s, selling the fruit became more important than promoting the state, and the labels increasingly contained pictures of large and juicy-looking oranges.
The labels disappeared in the 1940s, when orange farmers began shipping their fruit in cardboard boxes instead of wood crates, Taaffe said.
But interest in the artwork on the boxes persists. More than 100 collectors are expected at Saturday’s convention, where rare labels could sell for more than $1,000. The Sunkist building is at 14130 Riverside Drive in Sherman Oaks.
Among the more famous Orange County labels is the Auto Brand of Tustin, which shows a turn-of-the-century automobile driving through an orchard.
Hewes Transcontinental Brand of Orange printed labels showing a map of California next to a train with oranges and lemons on the sides of track.
A picture of a mansion framed by palm trees graced labels from Mother Colony Brand of Anaheim.
“Orange County produced some very nice labels,” said McClelland, 42, who has written two books on orange crate labels, including “California Orange Box Labels” (Hillcrest Press).
McClelland came across his first citrus labels in the 1960s while working at a packinghouse in Orange, which stored old labels in its basement.
Starting in Orange County, McClelland has visited dozens of packinghouses as far away as Florida and Texas in search of labels.
