Antique 1930s Repetition Brand Apples Crate Label 🍎 — R. Wachsmith, Yakima WA, Recursive Droste Artwork

Who Grew Repetition Brand Apples in Yakima? 🍎 Repetition Brand Apples, Grown and Packed by R. Wachsmith, Yakima, Washington

Size: 11" x 7 1/2" ~ Little to no wear.

This is an adorable label of a vintage boy selling fruit! Three times over, in fact: the same boy in a slouch cap, a blue-striped shirt and bib overalls, holding up two shiny red apples behind an open box of fruit. This is an antique 1930s Repetition Brand apple crate label, grown and packed by R. Wachsmith of Yakima, Washington, and printed by the Schmidt Lithograph Co. in Seattle. How can you not grab this almost 100-year-old piece of advertising? My pictures seriously don't do it justice.

🔍 What's on it

REPETITION in big yellow letters over APPLES on a black ground, with BRAND in tiny type between them. Below, the three boys, each behind a box of red apples alternating with white tissue-wrapped ones. PRODUCE OF U.S.A. in gold on the left and NET CONTENTS ONE VOLUME BUSHEL on the right, then GROWN AND PACKED BY R. WACHSMITH, YAKIMA, WASHINGTON along the bottom, all inside red, green and blue borders. In tiny black type in the green stripe at the lower right, the printer, SCHMIDT L. CO. SEATTLE. The back is plain, with the design showing faintly through in reverse.

Now look closer. The end of each of those apple boxes carries this very label, REPETITION APPLES, with its own three little boys and their own three little boxes, which would carry the label again, and again, forever. A label that repeats itself, on a brand called Repetition! The art folks call that a Droste effect, after the Dutch cocoa tin that pulled the same trick, and I think it's one of the cleverest jokes on any crate label I've handled.

🍏 Yakima and the Wachsmith boxes

Yakima is apple country, and R. Wachsmith grew and packed the fruit right there. The same three boys went on more than apples, too: the Repetition design turns up on Wachsmith's pear labels and peach labels as well, and the Boston Public Library keeps a Repetition Pears label from R. Wachsmith of Yakima, with the same Schmidt L. Co. Seattle imprint, in its collection.

🖨️ Schmidt Lithograph, Seattle

Schmidt was one of the big West Coast label printers. Max Schmidt started out in San Francisco in the 1870s and incorporated as the Schmidt Label & Lithographic Company in 1883. In 1899 he joined other printers to form the Mutual Label & Lithographic Company, and after the business was destroyed in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, it came back as the Schmidt Lithograph Company, running under that name until 1966. Branch offices opened early, first in Los Angeles and later in Portland and Seattle, which is where this Yakima apple label came from.

🏡 Display

Imagine hanging this antique advertising on your wall as home decor in any room! Those three boys look great framed in a kitchen or a kid's room, and it's a perfect gift for an apple grower, a set of triplets, or anybody from Yakima and the Yakima Valley.

Crate labels are a reminder of a bygone era, and the lithography on them is unparalleled even to this day, in my opinion. Museums and art institutes have galleries dedicated to them, and more and more collectors are seeking them out to preserve their history. Once the limited supply for sale is gone and on display with collectors or in galleries, they will be very difficult to acquire.