Vintage 1940s Happy Bee Brand Apples Crate Label 🐝 — Packed by Oliver Cosman, Mt. Airy Fruit Farm, Newburgh NY

Who Packed Happy Bee Apples? 🐝 Happy Bee Brand Apples, Packed by Oliver Cosman, Mt. Airy Fruit Farm, Newburgh, New York

Size: 10 1/4" x 7 3/4" ~ Little to no wear.

Adorable honey bee! This is a vintage 1940s Happy Bee Brand apple crate label, packed by Oliver Cosman at the Mt. Airy Fruit Farm in Newburgh, New York. A big-eyed cartoon bee with striped wings comes buzzing in from the left toward a tipped-over wooden crate spilling shiny red apples, with Apples in huge red letters on a sunny yellow ground and blue bands across the top and bottom. The crate itself is stamped with the best line on the label: BEE POLLINATED FOR PERFECTION.

🏷️ What's Printed on It

• Happy Bee BRAND
• Apples
• BEE POLLINATED FOR PERFECTION (on the pictured crate)
• PACKED BY OLIVER COSMAN
• MT. AIRY FRUIT FARM, RD 1, NEWBURGH, N. Y.
• ONE BUSHEL BY VOLUME - PRODUCT OF NEW YORK STATE, U.S.A.

That "Bee Pollinated for Perfection" is a real orchard truth. Apple blossoms need bees to set fruit, and growers set hives right in the orchards every spring, so the happy bee on this label is doing honest work. The old RD 1 address, rural delivery with no ZIP code, is a nice farm-country touch, too. There's still a Mt. Airy Fruit Farm in Newburgh today.

🏛️ Newburgh on the Hudson

Newburgh sits on the west bank of the Hudson River in Orange County, and it's got history to spare. George Washington made his Continental Army headquarters there from April 1782 to August 1783, in the Hasbrouck House, and it was there in 1783 that he talked his unpaid officers out of the Newburgh Conspiracy. In 1850 New York State bought the house, making it the first publicly owned historic site in the United States. Newburgh also had the second Edison power plant, and it was the second American city after New York's Pearl Street to light a street with electricity. All around it, the Hudson Valley was orchard country, and apples like these went out of there by the bushel.

🏡 Display

Crate Labels are a reminder of a bygone era but the amazing lithography process 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 these out to preserve their history. Once the limited supply for sale is gone and on display with collectors or in galleries then they will be very difficult to acquire.

Imagine this amazing vintage advertising hanging as home decor in any room of your home instead of a museum! It's a sweet one for a kitchen or a kid's room, and a perfect gift for a beekeeper, an apple grower, or anybody from Newburgh and the Hudson Valley.