Can Label, Broadway Brand Tomatoes, Original Lithograph, NOS, Antique 1920's

Before the grocery store. Before the supermarket. Before the can aisle existed at all — someone printed these by hand, one color at a time.

This is an original tomato can label — a 1925–1926 stone lithograph for Broadway Brand, distributed by Tibbitts-Hewitt Grocery Co. of St. Louis, Missouri. It has never been used. Never wrapped a can. It is New Old Stock in excellent mint condition, acquired from a long-time label dealer on the West Coast.

The label is a document. The tomato — vivid red, perfectly ripe — is almost beside the point. What the lithographer spent his months on is the Broadway scene behind it: the majestic skyscrapers of mid-1920s New York, the old-fashioned motor cars, the street life of one of the most famous thoroughfares in the world at its peak. This is a stone lithograph cityscape that required the same three to four months of plate-making as any other label of the era — applied to a can of tomatoes for a St. Louis grocery company. The Tibbitts-Hewitt Grocery Company was founded in 1925 and sold within a year to the General Grocery Company, making this label one of the shortest-lived commercial identities in American food history. Its window of production was narrow. The labels that survived it are finite. Two available.

Frame it as New York City history, as 1920s Americana, as a piece of Jazz Age commercial art, or simply as a remarkable cityscape that arrived on a can of tomatoes from St. Louis. At 11.0 by 4.25 inches it suits a standard narrow frame and works in any room that loves American cities and the decade that built them.

A wonderful gift for a New York history enthusiast, a 1920s Americana collector, a vintage ephemera collector, or anyone who wants a piece of Broadway — the original, lithographic, stone-printed one — on their wall.

A note on can label collecting: Original lithographic can labels from this era are far scarcer than crate labels — produced in smaller quantities, more fragile, and less often preserved. NOS examples like this one represent the finest of what survives from American food industry history.

• Brand: Broadway Brand / Tibbitts-Hewitt Grocery Co., St. Louis, Missouri (1925–1926)
• Type: Tomato can label — stone lithograph
• Made in: St. Louis, Missouri, USA
• Dated: 1925–1926
• Dimensions: 11.0" wide | 4.25" tall
• 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: Ideal for a narrow frame — ready to display