{"product_id":"vintage-1940s-pacific-pride-crate-label-san-francisco-ca-bridge","title":"Vintage 1940s Pacific Pride Brand Emperor Grapes Crate Label 🍇 — Pacific Fruit Exchange, San Francisco CA — Bridge \u0026 Steamship Art","description":"\u003cdiv style=\"max-width:315px;margin:0 auto 20px;\"\u003e\u003cdiv style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:177.78%;height:0;overflow:hidden;\"\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/hCnPG2GeV9I\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer;autoplay;clipboard-write;encrypted-media;gyroscope;picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eWho Was Pacific Pride? 🍇 Vintage 1940s Emperor Grapes Crate Label, Pacific Fruit Exchange, San Francisco\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e13\" x 4\" ~ Little to no wear. Sorry for the glare.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003e🌉 That Is the Golden Gate, and It Is the Best Thing on This Label\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eLet us not be coy about it. The bridge in the panel is the \u003cstrong\u003eGolden Gate Bridge\u003c\/strong\u003e — International Orange, the stepped Art Deco towers, the X-braced pier standing in the water at the Fort Point end, the Marin headlands rising behind it and a steamship sliding out underneath into a gold sunset. Nobody who has seen that bridge would mistake it for another one, and the artist did not intend them to.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThat matters, because the bridge is what gives this label its moment. Construction started on \u003cstrong\u003e5 January 1933\u003c\/strong\u003e and finished on \u003cstrong\u003e19 April 1937\u003c\/strong\u003e; it opened to the public on \u003cstrong\u003e27 May 1937\u003c\/strong\u003e, and people walked across it before any car did. Joseph Strauss was the chief engineer, with Leon Moisseiff and Charles Alton Ellis on the structure, and the man who decided what it would look like was the consulting architect \u003cstrong\u003eIrving F. Morrow\u003c\/strong\u003e. The steel arrived coated in an orange primer, and Morrow argued that the primer color should stay — that \u003cem\u003eInternational Orange\u003c\/em\u003e sat better against the fog and the headlands than the gray or the black-and-yellow stripes that had been proposed. He won, and that is why the most famous bridge in America is orange.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIts main span of \u003cstrong\u003e4,200 feet\u003c\/strong\u003e made it the longest in the world, and it held that title until the Verrazzano-Narrows opened in 1964.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🪢 The Net, and the Half Way to Hell Club\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThere is a piece of this story that belongs on any page about that bridge. Strauss insisted on a safety net strung beneath the deck, at a cost of \u003cstrong\u003e$130,000\u003c\/strong\u003e, which the money men thought extravagant. Over four years it caught \u003cstrong\u003enineteen men\u003c\/strong\u003e who would otherwise have died, and those nineteen formed themselves into the \u003cstrong\u003eHalf Way to Hell Club\u003c\/strong\u003e. The name came from the ironworkers' own grim shorthand — as the club member Al Zampa put it, a man who fell all the way had \"gone to hell,\" so a man the net caught had only fallen half way.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eEleven men died building it\u003c\/strong\u003e even so, ten of them in a single accident near the end when a scaffold went through the net. For its day the bridge was still regarded as a landmark in industrial safety, which tells you something about what the days before it were like.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🍇 What the Label Actually Says\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eEvery word printed on the sheet:\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePACIFIC PRIDE BRAND\u003c\/strong\u003e · \u003cstrong\u003eEMPERORS\u003c\/strong\u003e · \u003cstrong\u003ePACIFIC FRUIT EXCHANGE\u003c\/strong\u003e, in a red ellipse · \u003cstrong\u003eDISTRIBUTORS — MAIN OFFICE — SAN FRANCISCO, CAL.\u003c\/strong\u003e · \u003cstrong\u003eGROWN IN U.S.A.\u003c\/strong\u003e · \u003cstrong\u003eNET WEIGHT 28 LBS.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eNo year, no printer's imprint, no packing house, no grower. \u003cstrong\u003eEMPERORS\u003c\/strong\u003e is the grape variety — the big late-season red table grape that came off the vines last and shipped best, which is why it traveled east by the carload when the thinner-skinned varieties could not. The 28 pounds is the lug it was nailed to.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eOne honest point of order: that San Francisco line is the \u003cem\u003edistributor's\u003c\/em\u003e main office. It tells you where the Pacific Fruit Exchange sold from, not where the grapes were grown, and the label does not say where they were grown.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAnd for the avoidance of confusion among collectors, since the names run together: the Pacific Fruit Exchange is \u003cem\u003enot\u003c\/em\u003e Sunkist, not the California Fruit Exchange whose mark was the Blue Anchor, and not the Pacific Fruit Express refrigerator-car line.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🖨️ The Printing\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThis is stone lithography doing what it did best — flat, saturated, unbroken color with no halftone dot anywhere in it. Look at the depth of the navy ground against the yellow of the lettering, and at the way the sunset behind the bridge goes from gold to green to blue in smooth bands. Each of those colors was a separate stone and a separate pass through the press, and they had to register perfectly or the whole thing turned to mud. There is no printer's mark anywhere on this sheet, so the San Francisco house that did it remains unidentified.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🖼️ Display Ideas\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e🌉 \u003cstrong\u003eAnything San Francisco\u003c\/strong\u003e — this is a period piece of Golden Gate art that is not a poster reproduction.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e🍷 \u003cstrong\u003eKitchen, bar or wine room\u003c\/strong\u003e — the long, low 13 by 4 format sits beautifully above a doorway or along a shelf edge.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e🚢 \u003cstrong\u003eMaritime grouping\u003c\/strong\u003e — the steamship under the span makes it read as harbor art as much as fruit advertising.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e🖼️ \u003cstrong\u003eFramed alone\u003c\/strong\u003e — the shape is unusual enough that it does not need company. A navy or black mat picks up the ground.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e🎁 \u003cstrong\u003eFor a bridge enthusiast or a Bay Area native\u003c\/strong\u003e — especially with the Half Way to Hell story on a card beside it.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🎁 Who Collects These\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eCrate label collectors\u003c\/strong\u003e pursue California fruit labels as the great popular art of American agriculture, and the bridge panel puts this one in the top rank of the genre for design. \u003cstrong\u003eGolden Gate Bridge and San Francisco collectors\u003c\/strong\u003e want anything period that depicts the span, and commercial art of this quality showing it is not common. \u003cstrong\u003eMaritime and steamship collectors\u003c\/strong\u003e take it for the vessel. And \u003cstrong\u003egraphic designers\u003c\/strong\u003e buy these by the armful, because a stone lithograph in six or eight flat colors still teaches things that a screen cannot.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e❓ Frequently Asked Questions\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eIs it original?\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eYes — an original lithographed crate label, unused, never applied to a crate. These came out of packing-house and printer's stock that was left over when the wooden crate gave way to cardboard.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eIs that definitely the Golden Gate?\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eYes. The color, the stepped tower portals, the braced pier and the headlands behind it are all specific to that bridge. The label does not print its name — a crate label rarely captions its own artwork — but there is no ambiguity in the drawing itself.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eWhere were the grapes grown?\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe sheet does not say. It names San Francisco only as the distributor's main office. Emperors were grown across California's interior valleys, but this label does not tie itself to any one district and neither will I.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eWhat condition is it in?\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLittle to no wear. The colors are full and the sheet is flat and unglued. Any shine in the photographs is glare off the surface, not a flaw in the paper.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eHow should I frame it?\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAt 13 by 4 inches it is a long horizontal, so give it a mat with real depth above and below rather than a tight border — the proportion is the point. Navy or charcoal picks up the ground color; cream lifts the yellow lettering.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCrate 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 (the Huntington Library in California keeps the Jay T. Last Collection, with more than a thousand California citrus box labels alone), 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"relatedBlock\"\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🔎 More From The Vintage \u0026amp; Antique Gifts Archive\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/1920s-surety-crate-label-yakima-wa-steamship-beautiful-label-vintage\"\u003eVintage Surety Apple Crate Label: Yakima 🍎 WA Steamship Graphic, Sundquist Fruit \u0026amp; Cold Storage\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1940s-small-black-zinfandel-grapes-crate-label-escalon-ca-unique\"\u003eVintage 1940s Small Black Brand Zinfandel Crate Label 🍇 — Victor Fruit Growers, Escalon California\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-towne-tokays-crate-label-1940s-sunny-california-treasures-gifts\"\u003eVintage 1940s Towne Tokays Grapes Crate Label 🍇 Sunny California, Red Tokay Grape Artwork\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44060813230312,"sku":"VAG-8043175346408","price":7.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0597\/2718\/4037\/files\/il_fullxfull.6472210868_aut0.jpg?v=1785358917","url":"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1940s-pacific-pride-crate-label-san-francisco-ca-bridge","provider":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","version":"1.0","type":"link"}