Can Label, Bess Brand Milk, Original NOS Lithograph, Antique 1910s

This Bess Brand evaporated milk label never touched a can — an unused stone lithograph with one of the more evocative discovery stories in ephemera collecting.

• Maker: Bess Brand
• Materials: Stone lithograph paper
• Dimensions: 10" wide x 4" tall
• Origin: USA
• Era: Antique, circa 1910s
• Condition: New Old Stock (NOS) — unused, excellent mint condition. Age-appropriate yellowing consistent with period. Please review photos closely before purchasing, as all sales are final.
• Framing: Ideal for a narrow frame — ready to display

A Guernsey cow's head occupies the face of the label, rendered in the careful, limited palette of early stone lithography — when two or three colors were all the craft allowed and all the craftsman needed. Bess Brand was produced by United Milk Products Corporation; color printing of this complexity took three to four months of plate-making before a single impression could be pulled.

Frame it as farmhouse or dairy decor, as early Americana, or as part of a collection of antique milk labels — it works beautifully in a kitchen, a mudroom, a breakfast room, or anywhere that welcomes the quiet dignity of early American commercial art. A wonderful gift for a dairy history enthusiast, a farmhouse decor collector, or an Americana collector.

This label was recovered as New Old Stock from a box under the stairs of an old cannery in the process of being demolished. 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.

Browse our shop for more antique can labels and vintage ephemera to round out your collection.