Crate Label: Flying Colors Brand, Western Vegetables, Schuman Farms, Watsonville California, 1940s

Three American flags fly against a starry blue sky on this vertical crate label, printed for a company on the other side of the state from the earlier "Flying Colors" label in your shop — a nice reminder that brand names were often reused by unrelated packers.

• Brand: Flying Colors
• Produce: Western Vegetables
• Packing House / Grower: Schuman Farms
• Materials: Lithographed paper, printed by Western Litho Co., Los Angeles
• Dimensions: 7 x 9.5 in
• Origin: Watsonville, California, USA
• Era: 1940s
• Condition: Excellent, New Old Stock — never applied to a crate. Please review photos closely before purchasing, as all sales are final.

Never used: colors are bright and the label is free of the handling wear common to this era.

Western Litho Company operated in Los Angeles from 1899 until the mid-1950s, and their color work was especially prized for capturing real detail with care — this three-flags arrangement, from the same era as the Upland Pride rose label also in our shop, is a fine example of why.

Schuman Farms packed produce out of Watsonville, on California's Central Coast, an area whose fog-cooled climate made it one of the state's major vegetable-growing regions through the twentieth century. Like the Imperial Valley label of the same name, this "Flying Colors" brand leaned on patriotic flag imagery, likely tied to the WWII years when American iconography was a common selling point on crate labels nationwide. The generic "Western Vegetables" designation, rather than a single named crop, was typical of packers who shipped a rotating mix of produce under one label depending on the season.

A great pairing with the Holtville "Flying Colors" label for a collector interested in how brand names traveled between unrelated packing houses.  Pairs well with our other Watsonville-area crate labels.