Vintage 1940s Sunset Brand California Fruits Crate Label 🌅 — Packed by Joseph Gazzara & Co., P.O. Box 931 Fresno CA — Stecher-Traung Litho

Who Packed Sunset Brand Fruit in Fresno? 🌅 Sunset Brand California Fruits, Packed by Joseph Gazzara & Co., Fresno, California

Size: 11" x 4 1/4" ~ Little to no wear.

A big orange sun going down over the San Joaquin Valley, rays blazing across a golden sky, with rows of vines and orchards running off to the hills and a little farmstead by the road. This is a vintage 1940s Sunset Brand crate label for California fruits, packed by Joseph Gazzara & Co. of Fresno, California, printed by Stecher-Traung of San Francisco, and never pasted on a box. It's an uncommon version of the Gazzara Sunset label that covers all fruits, instead of naming just one.

🔍 What's on it

SUNSET in huge red letters on a slanted yellow banner, with BRAND tucked at the end, over a black band reading CALIFORNIA FRUITS in pale blue. Up in the corner, PACKED BY JOSEPH GAZZARA & CO., P. O. BOX 931 - FRESNO, CALIF., and down at the lower left, REG. U. S. PAT. OFF. and PRODUCE OF U.S.A., with the printer's line in tiny type beneath, STECHER-TRAUNG S. F., CALIF. The back is plain, with SUNSET showing faintly through in reverse.

🍇 Joe Gazzara, from Chicago to the San Joaquin

Joe Gazzara was a wine man before he was a fruit man. He came out of the Chicago wine trade, where he was one of the people behind the Sunny Hill Wine Company, which Louis Petri remembered as the biggest brand in the Chicago area. And here's a great little piece of wine history: when the Mondavi family's winery up in St. Helena was still called Sunny Hill, they had to change the name to Sunny St. Helena, because, as Robert Mondavi told it, they had a business connection with Joe Gazzara in Chicago, and he had the Sunny Hill name there.

After Petri bought him out, Gazzara moved to California and bought the Crest View Winery outside Fresno, about four miles from Sanger. It had been built in the 1930s by J.B. Perenchio, and Gazzara bought in a few years later and took over the whole of it in the 1940s. He had a packing house right there on the ranch as well, and a neighbor whose family had owned the land remembered that Mr. Gazzara put in a lot of new equipment, modernized the place, and was very successful. Crest View registered its name as a trademark for wines, and Joe Gazzara ran it until he passed away in 1968.

🖨️ Stecher-Traung, San Francisco

The printer was one of the biggest names in West Coast labels. It started in San Francisco in 1911 as the Pingree Traung Company, became Traung Label & Lithograph, and joined up with the Stecher Lithograph Company of Rochester, New York to become Stecher-Traung, printing California crate labels for decades until International Paper bought it in 1966.

🏡 Display

Imagine hanging this vintage advertising on your wall as home decor in any room! That long sunset looks great framed over a kitchen window or a doorway, and it's a perfect gift for a wine lover, a grape grower, or anybody from Fresno, Sanger and the San Joaquin 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.