Vintage 1940s Lake County Diamond 💎 Crate Label

Who Packed Lake County Diamond Pears? 💎 Lake County Diamond Brand Mountain Bartlett Pears, J. L. Annette, Finley, California

Size: 9 3/4" x 7 1/4" ~ Little to no wear.

Amazing colors on this vintage collectible! A big golden pear on a diamond, blazing orange-red sunburst rays behind it, and green stepped columns on either side like a little Art Deco theater. This is a vintage 1940s Lake County Diamond Brand crate label for Mountain Bartlett Pears, packed by J. L. Annette of Finley, California, with Heggblade-Marguleas Co. of San Francisco as sole distributors, and it was never pasted on a box. My pictures seriously don't do it justice. This is within 20 years of full antique status!

🔍 What's on it

LAKE COUNTY over a big DIAMOND in cream letters across the sunburst, with BRAND beneath. In the center, a yellow-and-red pear with a green leaf sitting on a diamond, and Mountain Bartlett PEARS. On the left end panel, Packed by J. L. ANNETTE, FINLEY, CALIFORNIA, and on the right, Sole Distributors HEGGBLADE MARGULEAS CO., SAN FRANCISCO, CALIF., with PRODUCE OF U.S.A. and CONTENTS 4/5 BUSHEL. No printer is named. The back is plain, with the design showing faintly through.

🍐 Lake County pears and the Mountain District

Lake County, up in the mountains north of Napa, has been growing pears since the 1880s, when Thomas Porteus planted the first commercial pear orchard. Other growers followed, and by 1919 the county had 700 acres of pears. For years the fruit was mostly dried and shipped to Europe, until boxed fresh pears took over in the mid-1920s. Today Lake County is the largest growing area in what the pear business calls the Mountain District, and here's the neat part: Lake County Diamond is still a label on Lake County pears today, packed in Finley.

That "4/5 BUSHEL" line tells you what box this went on. Crate labels were made to fit the container, and pears went out in 4/5-bushel boxes, with labels right about this size.

🏙️ Heggblade-Marguleas, San Francisco

The sole distributors printed on the label were a big name in California produce. Heggblade-Marguleas Co. was a produce marketing company started in the mid-1930s by Frank Heggblade and Joseph Marguleas, and its export side set up shop in San Francisco in 1939. In 1970 the company was sold to Tenneco and became Heggblade-Marguleas-Tenneco, with Joseph's son Howard as president. The label says plain Heggblade Marguleas Co., with no Tenneco, the name from the years before that sale.

🏡 Display

Imagine hanging this vintage advertising on your wall as home decor in any room! That sunburst looks great framed in a kitchen or a dining room, and it's a perfect gift for a pear lover, an Art Deco fan, or anybody from Finley, Kelseyville, Lakeport and Lake County.

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. The presses that printed these went quiet a long time ago, so what is out there now is all there will ever be. Once the last of the supply is on display with collectors and in galleries, finding one gets very difficult.