{"product_id":"vintage-pinto-crate-label-castroville-california-vegetables-monterey-bay","title":"Vintage 1940s - 1950s Pinto Crate Label 🤠 Castroville California Vegetables, Monterey Bay Pkg. Co. — Stecher-Traung Litho, Cowboy \u0026 Lasso Art","description":"\u003ch2\u003ePinto Brand California Vegetables Crate Label 🤠 Monterey Bay Pkg. Co., Castroville, California\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSize:\u003c\/strong\u003e 9\" x 7\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"max-width:315px;margin:0 auto 20px;\"\u003e\u003cdiv style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:177.78%;height:0;overflow:hidden;\"\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/2-INZ6lgv0A\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer;autoplay;clipboard-write;encrypted-media;gyroscope;picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp\u003eThis one comes at you at a full gallop - a grinning cowboy swinging his lasso from a pinto horse, all on jet black, with PINTO across the top and California Vegetables underneath. Growers, packers \u0026amp; shippers, Monterey Bay Pkg. Co., Castroville, Calif., Finest Quality, Produce of U.S.A., and down in the corner, Stecher-Traung, S.F. Never pasted on a crate. I have a stack of these, so yours will look just like this one.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e🐎 A Painted Horse\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePinto comes from the Spanish for painted - a horse splashed with white patches like this one. A label historian writing for the Ephemera Society describes a Pinto vegetable label lithographed by Stecher-Traung of San Francisco and calls its rider a vaquero, the Mexican cowboy of the old Southwest. Vaquero is the Spanish word our buckaroo is generally believed to come from. The same writer explains who all that color was for: the auction brokers and wholesale grocers buying produce at market, who went for the label that stood out from the rest. Monterey Bay ran a whole corral of Western brands - a Bronco Buster rodeo rider on its California Vegetables labels, a Bronco on its artichokes - and a Snow Slide skier too. Pinto, Snow Slide and Bronco Buster all went on file with the U.S. Patent Office as the company's trademarks for fresh vegetables. Pinto was filed in August 1955 and registered in June 1956, the company renewed it in 1976 and again in 1996, and the registration lapsed in 2007.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e🌿 Castroville, the Artichoke Center of the World\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eJuan Bautista Castro founded Castroville in 1863, at the edge of Monterey Bay where the lower Salinas Valley meets the sea. Italian immigrants had brought the artichoke to California back in the late 1800s. In 1922 Andrew Molera planted the first artichoke shoots there, and within a few years more than fifty growers had 12,000 acres in, most of them in and around Castroville - it's still the Artichoke Center of the World and still throws an Artichoke Festival. The Salinas Valley behind the town runs about 90 miles southeast from the river mouth, cooled by the bay, and grows so much of the country's salad greens that it's known as America's Salad Bowl - Steinbeck's East of Eden country. And here's the one everybody in town loves to tell: in February 1948, a young actress named Marilyn Monroe came through the Monterey Bay area, and the California Artichoke Association put a sash on her as California's Artichoke Queen.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e🚂 The Packing House on the Spur\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Southern Pacific came through Castroville in 1871, and once the Monterey Branch was built out of town in 1880 the place became a little freight hub for the area. Monterey Bay Packing set up there in the late 1930s with a spur track of its own off the freight yard, and it was still operating in 1985, specializing in vegetables other than artichokes.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e🔎 Dating It\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNothing on it carries a year, but the printer narrows it. Stecher-Traung took that name in 1936, when San Francisco's Traung Label \u0026amp; Lithograph took in the Stecher Lithograph Company of Rochester, and used it until 1966 - and Monterey Bay Packing wasn't shipping until the late 1930s anyway. Dealers split between the 1940s and the 1950s for this label, and paper crate labels were on their way out by the end of the '50s, so that's where it sits. It was the war that started the paper label's slide: it pulled workers away from the crate makers and metal away from the printers, and packers went over to cheaper cardboard boxes with the brand printed right on them.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eA great one framed in a kitchen, a den or anywhere that needs a cowboy.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"relatedBlock\"\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🔎 More From The Vintage \u0026amp; Antique Gifts Archive\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1940s-sunset-crate-label-fresno-ca-historic-picturesque-americana\"\u003eVintage 1940s Sunset Brand California Fruits Crate Label 🌅 — Packed by Joseph Gazzara \u0026amp; Co., P.O. 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Carlisle \u0026amp; Co Litho, Reedley CA, Cowboy Decor\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":41987241705704,"sku":"VAG-7430583877864","price":8.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0597\/2718\/4037\/files\/il_fullxfull.3485352143_27th.jpg?v=1785355967","url":"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-pinto-crate-label-castroville-california-vegetables-monterey-bay","provider":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","version":"1.0","type":"link"}