Antique San Alto Panetelas Cigar Label 🦁 Embossed Gold Lithograph – Spector Bros. Coat of Arms, Consolidated Litho Brooklyn NY

What Does Concordia, Industria, Integritas Mean on a Cigar Label? 🦁 An Antique San Alto Panetelas Embossed Cigar Label, Spector Bros., Printed in Brooklyn

Size: 6 3/4" x 6 3/4"

A full coat of arms in gold: a crowned shield with an interlocked S.A. monogram, a lion on one side and a unicorn on the other, three crowns and a plumed eagle crest on top, and a ribbon underneath with the Latin CONCORDIA, INDUSTRIA, INTEGRITAS - harmony, industry, integrity. SAN ALTO runs across the top, a red ribbon in the corner says Panetelas - the long, slender cigar shape - and along the bottom it reads QUALITY CIGARS, SAN ALTO, QUALITY CIGARS, then TITLE & DESIGN OWNED BY SPECTOR BROS., and in tiny type, CONSOLIDATED LITHOGRAPHING CORPORATION, BROOKLYN, N.Y. It's a square inner-lid label, deeply embossed - turn it over and the whole crest is pressed through the back - and it went from the printer to storage and then to me, never glued into a box.

Amazing gold embossed label. The raised areas on labels like this were finished in gold or bronze, and in the light it really glows. Cigar labels are a reminder of a bygone era, and the lithography on them is unparalleled even to this day in my opinion.

🏭 Spector Brothers

Title & Design Owned By means the cigar company had this artwork made for its own brand and claimed it, rather than buying a stock label out of a printer's catalog. The owners were the Spector Brothers, and they were a Chicago firm: a Milwaukee Drug Company wholesale catalog sold their Queen Caroline cigar, made of imported Vuelta Abajo leaf by Cuban workmen, as manufactured by Spector Brothers, Chicago, Ill. San Alto was one of their long-running brands - the University of South Florida's Osterweil cigar label collection holds San Alto labels published by Spector Brothers, Inc., one of them dated January 1900, and a catalogued cigar band reads S.A. San Alto Quality Cigars, Makers, Spector Bros. A sister label, Little Alto, carries the same coat of arms and reads San Alto Cigar Co. Makers. I've also seen Spector Brothers tied to Lima, so they may have had more than one factory along the way.

🖨️ Printed in Brooklyn

Brooklyn on this label is the printer's town, not the cigar maker's. Consolidated Lithographing Corporation only started operating under that name on January 1, 1926, which tells you this printing of the San Alto design is from 1926 or later, even though the brand itself goes back to at least 1900. It was a big Brooklyn label house, and Brooklyn in those years was an industrial city full of printers, sugar refineries and cigar firms.

📅 How old is it?

The brand is older, but this sheet can't be earlier than 1926 because of the Consolidated imprint, so it belongs to the late 1920s - right at the tail end of the gold-embossed label era.

🎨 The artists

Most of these artists were very good but desperate for work during that era, and got paid very little and received no recognition for their work. Unfortunately, the majority of them will remain unknown, but we can keep their art alive forever. My pictures seriously don't do it justice - these were done on heavy paper stock, which is why they stay so vibrant.

🦁 About these labels

Every one I have is unused, 6 3/4 inches square, with the embossing crisp. Imagine hanging this antique advertising on your wall in any room - a shadow box with a little space in front keeps the relief from getting pressed flat. Museums and art institutes have galleries dedicated to labels like this, and more collectors are seeking them out to preserve the history. Once the limited supply for sale is gone and on display with collectors or in galleries, they will be very difficult to acquire.