Vintage 1960s Oh Yes Brand California Pears Crate Label 🍐 — Di Giorgio Fruit Corporation, Marysville CA — Printed ZIP 95901

Who Packed Oh Yes Brand Pears? 🍐 Di Giorgio's Pear Label from Marysville, California

Size: 11" x 7 1/2" ~ Very slight corner softening only.

Vintage Oh Yes We Grow The Best Crate Pears Label made by Di Giorgio Fruit Corp. out of Marysville, California, 1960s. Two big golden pears with green leaves hang on either side of a cream triangle on a deep blue ground, with OH YES! in huge red letters, WE GROW THE BEST in red, and CALIFORNIA PEARS underneath. My pictures seriously don't do it justice.

🏷️ Every Word on the Label

• OH YES!, in big red letters
• WE GROW THE BEST, the slogan
• CALIFORNIA, then PEARS
• CONTENTS 4/5 BUSHEL
• PRODUCE OF U.S.A.
• Di Giorgio FRUIT CORPORATION, in the corner logo
• MARYSVILLE, CALIFORNIA 95901, in red below a dark bar

The back is blank, with the design showing through faintly.

🔍 The Blocked-Out Line

This is a really neat label. It appears they blocked a part of their name on their litho plate and were not very accurate as you can still see the period, and then printed the new address underneath. I believe it did say San Francisco, Calif. Litho plates were expensive to make, and if it wasn't worn out this was a much easier way of doing it, but it is not seen too often.

And there's good evidence I'm right. The Henry Ford museum has an earlier label of this same Di Giorgio brand, for California Fruits, dated 1930 to 1940, and on that one the line printed right under CORPORATION reads San Francisco, Calif. On ours, that same spot is covered by a dark bar with a stray period peeking out the end, and the Marysville address is printed underneath with a ZIP code. ZIP codes didn't exist until July 1, 1963, and the company dropped Fruit from its name in 1964, so this one comes from right around that 1960s changeover, when the old Fruit Corporation plate got a new Marysville address.

👑 The Fruit King

A lot of neat history on this company is out there. Giuseppe "Joseph" Di Giorgio was born in Sicily in 1874 and came to the United States in 1888 at just 14. He landed in New York, moved on to Baltimore and opened his own store selling lemons, and by 16 he was one of the most successful fruit receivers and distributors in the city. He went on to import bananas, back fruit auction houses in cities across the country, and in 1911 bought Earl Fruit Company, the dominant packing company in California. In 1919 he started developing land near Arvin in the San Joaquin Valley, and in December 1920 he combined everything into the Di Giorgio Fruit Corporation.

By 1946 Di Giorgio Fruit covered about 33 square miles of the San Joaquin Valley and was the largest grape, plum and pear grower in the world. When Joseph died in 1951 it was the largest fruit-packing enterprise in the country, and they called him the Fruit King. Robert Di Giorgio became president in 1962 and steered the company into processing and distribution, Fruit came off the name in 1964, and by 1976 the company owned only 2,500 acres of farmland, around Marysville, which was sold in 1978.

⛏️ Marysville, Gateway to the Gold Fields

Marysville is named for Mary Murphy Covillaud, a survivor of the Donner Party and the wife of town founder Charles Covillaud. It was settled in 1850, incorporated on February 5, 1851, and served as the Gateway to the Gold Fields, where riverboats from Sacramento and San Francisco dropped off prospectors headed for the northern mines. It's the county seat of Yuba County, and its Bok Kai Temple, built by Chinese residents in 1854 and rebuilt in 1880, still hosts a Bok Kai Festival with a 175-foot dragon parade that's been held every year since 1880.

🖼️ 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!