Crate Label, Appleton Newtown Pippins Apples, Original Lithograph, 1910's, Antique

Before supermarkets. Before plastic wrap. Before everything was the same everywhere — there were crate labels.

This is an original California apple crate label — a 1910s stone lithograph printed by Olsen Bros. for the Appleton Brand, from factory stock held by Borgovich & Dragovich of Watsonville, California. It has never been used. Never folded. Never attached to a crate. It is New Old Stock in excellent mint condition.

The label is extraordinary — and genuinely antique. An Art Nouveau woman, drawn in the unmistakable style of Alphonse Mucha, holds a single rose. More roses frame her. Behind her, a California landscape unfolds in careful, luminous detail: orchards, hills, open sky. The Newtown Pippin apples in the foreground are painted with the same botanical precision. This is what commercial art looked like at its very best, in the decade before the First World War — when a fruit crate could carry a lithograph worthy of a museum wall.

This is the scarce uncrossed version — none of the text has been struck through, making it both more beautiful and significantly more valuable to collectors. Stone lithography of this era was a painstaking process; the richness of color and the softness of line are things modern printing cannot reproduce. One available.

Frame it as you would any fine print. At approximately 10.5 inches wide it suits a standard 11x14 or 12x16 frame. On a wall, it reads as early twentieth-century botanical and figurative art — which is exactly what it is. Equally at home in a formal room or a well-curated casual one.

A wonderful gift for a serious collector of vintage ephemera, an admirer of Art Nouveau, a California history enthusiast, or anyone who appreciates art that arrived disguised as packaging.

A note on crate label collecting: Original stone lithographic labels from the 1910s are among the rarest examples of the form. NOS examples like this one — never used, never folded, in original mint condition — represent the very best of what survives from this era.

• Brand: Appleton Brand / Borgovich & Dragovich, Watsonville, California
• Lithographer: Olsen Bros.
• Type: Apple crate label — stone lithograph
• Made in: USA
• Dated: circa 1910s
• Dimensions: 10.5" wide
• Condition: New Old Stock (NOS) — unused, excellent mint condition. Uncrossed version. Age-appropriate yellowing consistent with period. Please review all photos carefully — we cannot accept returns.
• Framing: Fits a standard 11x14 or 12x16 frame — ready to display