Vintage 1940s Winged Wheel Crate Label 🛞 San Francisco Advertising

Who Shipped Winged Wheel Produce? 🛞 Winged Wheel Brand, Produce of U.S.A., Connell Bros. Co., Ltd., San Francisco

Size: 10" x 8 3/4" ~ Little to no wear.

A golden wheel with wings, flying across a blazing orange-red sky with yellow speed rays shooting out behind it. This is a vintage 1940s Winged Wheel Brand crate label from Connell Bros. Co., Ltd. of San Francisco, and it was never pasted on a box. That airbrushed speed look is pure streamline era, and it really jumps off the wall.

🔍 What's on it

WINGED WHEEL arched across the top in big yellow letters with BRAND beneath, and in the middle the winged wheel emblem throwing rays of yellow light. Along the bottom, PRODUCE OF U.S.A. and CONNELL BROS. CO., LTD., SAN FRANCISCO, U.S.A., all inside a brown frame with a blue-gray inner rule. No printer is named. The back is plain.

🌏 Connell Bros., San Francisco to the Far East

That "PRODUCE OF U.S.A." line is a clue. Connell Bros. wasn't a grower, it was an import and export house, and this label went on American produce headed overseas. Two brothers founded the company in 1898, and by the 1930s Connell Bros. Co., Ltd. had offices across Asia: newspaper ads show it at Hong Kong in 1934 and Shanghai in 1937, and a 1948 China Weekly Review ad lists "Connell Bros. Co., Ltd., Established 1898, Importers & Exporters," with branches in Singapore, Penang, Manila, Cebu and Iloilo. At home it was at 320 California Street in San Francisco for decades.

In 1931 the San Francisco firm Wilbur-Ellis bought Connell Brothers, a well-respected distributor of food and other products, to start its business in the Far East. Connell Bros. merged into Wilbur-Ellis in 1987, changed its name to Connell in 2019 to honor the two founding brothers, and merged with Caldic in 2023. The Winged Wheel went on more than fruit, too: Connell put the same brand on case ends for canned pilchards.

🏡 Display

Imagine hanging this vintage advertising on your wall as home decor in any room! That winged wheel looks great framed in a garage, a man cave, a kitchen or an office, and it's a perfect gift for a car or motorcycle lover, a cyclist, anybody in shipping or trade, or anybody from San Francisco.

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.