{"product_id":"vintage-tot-crate-label-watsonville-ca-cute-baby-1940s-treasures-gifts","title":"Vintage 1940s Tot Brand Vegetable Crate Label 👶 — T.O. Tomasello Co, Watsonville CA — Cute Baby Produce Art","description":"\u003ch2\u003eWho Packed Tot Brand Vegetables? 👶 The Family Firm Whose Initials Became a Baby\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSize:\u003c\/strong\u003e 9 3\/4\" 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\/vZyUNWJGsNM\" 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\n\u003cp\u003eThis one carries a wink built right into its name. The packer was the T.O. Tomasello Co. of Watsonville, California — and \"T.O.\" plus a \"T\" spells \"TOT,\" so the family turned its own initials into a brand and then drew a literal tot, a beaming baby, to seal the joke. It is an original Tot Brand vegetable crate label, one of the most charming pieces of California produce branding you could hope to frame, and it survives unused and intact.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003e🍅 Who the T.O. Tomasello Co. Was\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Tomasellos were a real Watsonville produce family, and their business operated from 275 West Beach Street, in the heart of one of California's great growing towns. Watsonville sits in the Pajaro Valley, a fertile pocket of the central coast just inland of Monterey Bay, where cool marine air and rich soil make for year-round vegetables and fruit — and the Tomasello company packed and shipped that bounty out to markets across the country. \"Tot\" was not their only brand; the same firm shipped tomatoes under labels like \"Dominator\" and \"Tri-X,\" and it even ran a banana-ripening operation, the kind of full-service produce house that kept a coastal farm town connected to the national table. The family stayed at it across the decades: Joe Tomasello, born in 1935, came back to the family farming business after military service and worked in it for the next forty years. This little label is a genuine piece of that family enterprise.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003e🥬 What the Label Shows\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe brand name TOT leaps forward in big three-dimensional block letters like a marquee, with a small BRAND beside them. Up in the corner, set in a circle like a locket, is the mascot: the rosy-cheeked face of a smiling baby. Below spreads a garden still-life painted with real appetite: cabbage, cauliflower, tomatoes, carrots, peas in the pod, bell peppers and beets. The sheet states its business plainly: PRODUCE OF U.S.A., PACKED AND SHIPPED BY \/ MAIN OFFICE WATSONVILLE, CAL., and across the bottom, T.O. TOMASELLO CO., with a little star.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003e🍼 The Baby and the Pun\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe cleverness is hiding in plain sight, and it's very much a family joke: a produce house named for a man's initials, T.O, turning itself into a \"Tot\" and putting a baby on the box. It's exactly the sort of friendly, memorable wordplay that made a brand stick in a grocery buyer's mind, and it's charming to unpack nearly eighty years later.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003e🎨 Bold 1940s Label Design\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhere the romantic citrus labels whispered, this one was built to shout across a market floor — appropriate for a firm selling freshness rather than nostalgia. It is a confident piece of 1940s commercial graphics: the punchy three-dimensional lettering, the appetizing realism of the vegetables, the graphic snap of those pale chevrons, all printed in the saturated lithographic color of the era. (That printing is the seasoning; the story is the Tomasellos'.) It has aged into a genuinely handsome graphic object, the kind of bold, cheerful vintage design that looks wonderful blown up on a wall.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003e📦 Genuine, Unused New Old Stock\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is an original period label in New Old Stock condition — printed to be pasted on a Tomasello vegetable crate and never used. The reverse, shown in the photographs, is clean blank cream stock, the sign of a label stored flat rather than applied to a box. It shows only very slight corner wear, exactly as visible in the photos, and is otherwise bright and whole. It measures approximately 9¾ by 7 inches, a compact vegetable-crate label. It is offered precisely as pictured, with nothing retouched or concealed.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003e🖼️ How to Live With It\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e👶 Frame it for a nursery, a child's room or a family kitchen — a smiling baby over a garden of vegetables is about as warm as wall art gets.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e🥕 Hang it in a kitchen or dining room as bold, appetizing vintage food art; the navy-and-cabbage palette is a designer's gift.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e🖼️ Group it with other vegetable and produce labels for a farm-to-table gallery wall with real punch.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e🍅 Set it in a Watsonville or central-coast California home as a genuine piece of local produce history.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e🎁 Give it, matted and framed, as a baby-shower or new-parent gift with a real vintage story.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003e💛 Who It Is For\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis finds its people easily: the crate-label collector who wants a clean, unused vegetable label with a great hook; the lover of vintage advertising and baby-image ephemera; the Watsonville or Monterey Bay local proud of the region's growing history; and the gift-giver hunting something genuinely charming and genuinely old for a new baby or a food-loving friend.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003e❓ A Few Honest Answers\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eWho made it?\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe T.O. Tomasello Co, a family produce house in Watsonville, California — \"Tot\" comes from the founder's initials, T.O.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eWhat is it for?\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMixed vegetables. The label reads \"Produce of U.S.A.\" and names the Tomasello firm as packer and shipper.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eIs it original?\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eYes — an original 1940s lithographed vegetable crate label in unused New Old Stock condition, with a clean blank back.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eWas it ever used?\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNo — the blank cream reverse shows it was never pasted to a crate.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eHow big is it?\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eApproximately 9¾ by 7 inches, a compact vegetable-crate label that frames well.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003e🥬 A Real Watsonville Produce House\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt's worth knowing what kind of business stood behind this baby. The T.O. Tomasello Co. was a working family produce house in Watsonville, in the Pajaro Valley — a fertile coastal district just inland of Monterey Bay that has been one of California's great year-round growing regions for well over a century, famous for berries, apples and vegetables. The firm operated from a plain address on West Beach Street, and it did the full range of a mid-century shipper's work: it packed and shipped tomatoes and mixed vegetables under a catalog of brands — not just \"Tot\" but tomato labels like \"Dominator\" and \"Tri-X\" — and it even ran a banana-ripening operation, the kind of local house that kept a farm town wired into the national grocery trade. And it stayed a family concern across the generations; Joe Tomasello, born in 1935, came home to the family farming business after his military service and worked in it for some forty years. There's no grand corporate saga here — just a real Watsonville family that fed the country and had the wit to turn its own initials into a smiling baby.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003e🍼 A Family With a Sense of Humor\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhat I keep coming back to is how much personality this little firm had. Plenty of packers named a brand for a saint, a place or a pretty girl; the Tomasellos looked at their own initials — T.O. — saw the word \"tot,\" and cheerfully put a baby on the box. That kind of wit tells you something about the people. And the baby wasn't their only brand: the same family shipped tomatoes under names like \"Dominator\" and \"Tri-X\" and even ripened bananas, so a grocery buyer might have known the Tomasello name from several corners of the produce aisle. This label is the friendliest face of that catalog — a working family's warmth, printed in three-dimensional letters and a rosy-cheeked grin, the kind of small, genuine object that carries more heart than a whole shelf of new decor.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003e✨ Why It Matters\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is a small piece of Americana that makes people smile — and it belongs to a real Watsonville family. It is a genuine 1940s vegetable label from the T.O. Tomasello Co, built on the family's own initials-into-\"Tot\" pun and crowned with a beaming baby that has charmed collectors for generations, all above a garden's worth of produce. Preserved unused, its back still blank, it is ready to frame as bold, cheerful, storied wall art.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003e📋 What Is Printed On This Label\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eTOT\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eBRAND\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003ePRODUCE OF U.S.A.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003ePACKED AND SHIPPED BY\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eMAIN OFFICE\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eWATSONVILLE, CAL.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eT.O. TOMASELLO CO.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePacker, not printer.\u003c\/strong\u003e The firm named on the label is the house that grew, packed or shipped the fruit. It did not make the label — commercial lithographers did that, and where one signed the sheet the imprint is quoted above.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWhat is actually in the still life.\u003c\/strong\u003e One head of cabbage, one cauliflower in its collar of leaves, two red tomatoes, two orange carrots, several pea pods, two dark green bell peppers and two red beets with their tops. 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