Crate Label, Surety Apples, Original Lithograph, 1920's NOS

Before supermarkets. Before plastic wrap. Before everything was the same everywhere — there were crate labels.

This is an original Washington State apple crate label — a 1920s stone lithograph from the factory stock of Sundquist Fruit and Cold Storage Company of Yakima, Washington. It has never been used. Never folded. Never attached to a crate. It is New Old Stock in excellent mint condition.

The label is a landscape painting in miniature. An old wooden ship moves through what appears to be the Naches River, the water calm and dark around it. Behind the ship, the Ridge-Cleman Mountain Range rises, and behind that — unmistakable, snow-covered, enormous — Mount Rainier fills the horizon. The detail is meticulous: the rigging of the ship, the texture of the foliage, the gradation of the mountains from dark green to white. Stone lithography of the 1920s could achieve a tonal range that later printing methods never matched, and this label shows exactly why collectors prize it.

Frame it as landscape art — because that is what it is. At approximately 10.25 inches wide it fits a standard 11x14 frame beautifully. The composition reads as a Pacific Northwest landscape print from any distance; only up close do you realize it came off a fruit crate. Works beautifully in a study, a cabin, a kitchen, or any room that wants quiet, genuine American landscape art. One available.

A wonderful gift for a Pacific Northwest enthusiast, a Mount Rainier admirer, a vintage ephemera collector, or anyone who appreciates the surprising depth of early twentieth-century commercial lithography.

A note on crate label collecting: Original stone lithographic labels from this era are among the rarest and most sought-after examples of the form. NOS examples like this one — never used, never folded, in original mint condition — represent the finest of what survives.

• Brand: Surety Brand / Sundquist Fruit and Cold Storage Co., Yakima, Washington
• Type: Apple crate label — stone lithograph
• Made in: USA
• Dated: circa 1920s
• Dimensions: 10.25" wide
• Condition: New Old Stock (NOS) — unused, excellent mint condition. Age-appropriate yellowing consistent with period. Please review all photos carefully — we cannot accept returns.
• Framing: Fits a standard 11x14 frame — ready to display