Antique 1930s Legal Tender Brand Valencias Crate Label 💵 — Sunkist, Fillmore Citrus Association, California

Who Packed Legal Tender Valencias? 💵 LEGAL TENDER Valencias, Fillmore Citrus Association, Fillmore, California

Size: 11" x 10" ~ Little to no wear.

Money doesn't grow on trees, but in Fillmore it came pretty close. This antique 1930s Legal Tender label puts a fat stack of five-dollar bills, strapped with a $250 band, on a crate of Valencia oranges, and I can't think of a plainer way for a grower to say "this fruit is as good as cash." The Fillmore Citrus Association packed it, there's a Sunkist-wrapped orange down in the corner, and the printer's line reads CROCKER-UNION L.A.

🍊 The Growers in Fillmore

The Fillmore Citrus Association was formed in 1897 with David Felsenthal as its president. Its very first label was Cupid, a winged boy with a bow surrounded by butterflies, for its finest grade, and alongside it came Cycle for the choice grade, printed by Schmidt Lithograph of San Francisco. In 1899 the association joined the Southern California Fruit Exchange, the growers' co-op that became Sunkist, and that same year it bought a lot at Sespe Avenue and A Street for $50 and built its packing house there for $1,500. A new orange packing house followed in 1918, a lemon house in 1924, and in 1931 the lemons got labels of their own, All Year and Sespe.

Legal Tender didn't start out as theirs. According to the Fillmore Historical Museum, it was a brand of the Fillmore Packing Company, and the association bought it, along with Poinsettia, in 1935 and used it for its Sunkist grade from then on. The design was drawn by Godfrey Nystrom, one of the better-known label designers of his day. By August 1940 the Santa Ana Register's citrus market report was quoting Legal Tender Valencias out of Fillmore at $3.10 and $3.45.

That history tells you when a label like this was made, too. It names the Fillmore Citrus Association and carries the Sunkist wrapper, so it came after the 1935 purchase, and the Crocker-Union line is the name the Los Angeles printing house went by from 1936, after H. S. Crocker had taken over the old Union Lithograph Company.

🚂 Fillmore, Ventura County

Fillmore sits at the foot of the Topatopa Mountains, out in Ventura County's Santa Clara River Valley, and it's a railroad town. It was founded in 1887 when the Southern Pacific line came through, and it took its name from J. A. Fillmore, a Southern Pacific superintendent. The Spanish Portolá expedition passed down this same valley back in 1769. Fillmore incorporated on July 10, 1914, and it's still orange country. The old downtown has turned up in plenty of Hollywood films and TV shows, and for thirty years, until 2021, the Fillmore and Western Railway carried tourists through the orchards. The 1994 Northridge earthquake hit Fillmore harder than anywhere else in the county, and some 60 damaged buildings had to come down, but the town rebuilt.

💰 Why "Legal Tender"

The name goes back to the Civil War. With the Union scrambling to pay for the war, President Abraham Lincoln signed the First Legal Tender Act on February 25, 1862, making United States Notes legal tender. Everybody called them greenbacks. The Supreme Court argued over whether they were even constitutional in the Legal Tender Cases, and United States Notes kept being issued for 109 years, until 1971. So when a grower stacked greenbacks on his orange crate, everybody knew what he meant.

The fruit inside was the Valencia, the orange that ripens in summer. As the California story goes, the pioneer William Wolfskill grew it on his Santa Ana farm in the mid-1800s and named it for the famous oranges of Valencia, Spain, and the Irvine Ranch later planted nearly half its land in them.

It's a natural for a banker's office, a coin or currency collector, or anybody with family around Fillmore, Piru or Santa Paula. And it's one of the funniest labels in my whole citrus collection.