🧹 Crowned clean – Antique Acme 6 from Hamburg Broom Works

This antique Acme 6 broom label is unused NOS stock from Hamburg Broom Works in Hamburg, Pennsylvania, and measures about 5¼ inches tall by 4 inches wide, a perfect size to frame as a mini poster. The artwork shows a richly detailed crown glowing with rays of light, flanked by two upright brooms like royal scepters, with a banner carrying the number 6 and the Hamburg Broom Works imprint at the bottom.

✨ A real small‑town broom factory success story
Hamburg Broom Works was founded by Wilson Schmick in 1894, and a new brick factory went up on the north side of Pine Street in 1911. For decades that plant turned broom corn into everyday household brooms, becoming one of the best‑known industries in Hamburg and one of the last traditional broom factories to survive. This Acme 6 label would have wrapped brooms heading out of that factory to hardware and general stores all over the region.

Based on the design and printing, this label was likely produced sometime in the 1910s–1920s, right in the middle of the factory’s most active years. The crown, rays, and classic serif “Acme” lettering still carry that early‑20th‑century pride in a job well done.

🎨 Lithography from the early 1900s
The Acme 6 label was printed by early 20th‑century lithography, where each color was laid down as a separate ink pass. That process gives the design its velvety blue background, bright red border, and finely shaded crown and broom heads. Museums and art institutes now preserve original product labels like this to show how real‑world packaging once combined illustration, typography, and color in ways that still feel fresh today.

🏛️ From stockroom shelf to frame‑worthy art
Broom labels were meant to be used up and thrown away with the broom. The only reason pieces like this survived is that someone at Hamburg Broom Works saved unused sheets in a drawer or warehouse instead of using them all. As collectors and galleries discover how scarce original broom labels are, they’re framing them, cataloging them, and slowly pulling them out of circulation.

This Acme 6 label is perfect if you love Pennsylvania history, industrial heritage, or just the idea that even a simple broom once came with its own crown and rays of light. It looks fantastic framed in a kitchen, laundry room, broom closet, office, studio, or grouped with other antique labels on a gallery wall.

Approx. 5¼" x 4", original lithographed broom label, NOS, ready to frame, gift, or add to your ephemera collection.