Vintage 1940s Dominator Brand Tomato Crate Label ✈️ WWII Fighter Art, T.O. Tomasello Watsonville CA

Who Packed Dominator Brand Tomatoes? ✈️ Dominator Brand Tomatoes, T.O. Tomasello Co., Watsonville, California

Size: 13" x 5" ~ Very minor edge wear if any. ~ Has very slight wear/corner softening and I am being very picky here.

Amazing label! A silver fighter plane dives across a deep blue sky trailing speed streaks, its propeller a spinning blur and a burst of fire flashing right out of the center of the hub. It wears the old American insignia, a white star with a red center in a blue circle, on the fuselage and on both wings. DOMINATOR roars across the label in huge red and yellow block letters with BRAND tucked underneath, and TOMATOES sits in the lower right. This is a really neat label. My pictures seriously don't do it justice.

In a teal triangle at the upper left it reads PACKED & SHIPPED BY T.O. TOMASELLO CO., MAIN OFFICE, WATSONVILLE, CALIFORNIA, with PRODUCE OF U.S.A. across the top right and MINIMUM NET WT. 30 LBS. under the plane. This is the long tomato version of the Dominator label; there's a tall vegetable version too. The back is blank, with DOMINATOR showing through in reverse.

⭐ The Star That Dates the Art

That star is the best clue to when this plane was drawn. American military aircraft started carrying the white star with the red center on May 19, 1917. In May 1942 the red center came off, because in combat it could be mistaken for the red Hinomaru of Japan, and in June 1943 white bars were added to the sides. So the artist painted this fighter the way American planes looked before the spring of 1942. The Ephemera Society of America calls it a fictional World War II fighter plane, and wonders about that gun in the propeller, and I'll let you decide what it is.

🍅 T.O. Tomasello Co. and the River of the Bird

The T.O. Tomasello Co. shipped produce such as tomatoes and celery out of Watsonville, at the south end of Santa Cruz County on the Monterey Bay. The Ohlone people lived here first, along the Pajaro Dunes. When the Spanish Portolá expedition came through in 1769, the first Europeans to explore the area, the soldiers saw a big bird near a large river, and the story lives on in the river's name, the Río del Pájaro, the River of the Bird. The expedition camped at one of the lakes north of town for five nights, October 10 to 14, 1769.

Under Mexico the land became Rancho Bolsa del Pajaro, granted to Sebastian Rodríguez in 1837. After 1848 settlers poured in, and John H. Watson and D. S. Gregory laid out the town in 1852. It was incorporated as the Town of Watsonville around March 30, 1868, named for Watson, and became the City of Watsonville about 1889. A bird over the river then, a fighter over the tomatoes later.

🖼️ Hang It Up

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 of them and collectors are seeking these out to preserve their history. Nobody is ever going to print these again. The supply for sale is all there is, and once it is framed on collectors' walls and tucked into gallery collections, these labels will be very hard to come by.

Imagine this amazing vintage advertising hanging as home decor in any room of your home instead of a museum!