Crate Label: Morjon Brand Apples, Little Boy Blue, Connell Bros, San Francisco California, 1940s

Little Boy Blue blows his horn amid flowering shrubs in this whimsical apple crate label, with a rosy red apple and one golden apple anchoring the design below.  

• Brand: Morjon
• Produce: Apples
• Lithographer: Schmidt Litho Co. of San Francisco
• Packing House / Grower: Connell Bros. Co., Ltd.
• Materials: Lithographed paper, printed by Schmidt Litho Co., San Francisco
• Dimensions: 9 x 11 in
• Origin: San Francisco, 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.

Warehouse stock, never used: the greens and florals are bright and the apple illustrations remain crisp.  Dated to the 1940s based on: The Schmidt Lithograph Company of San Francisco was tasked with the bulk of Connell Bros.' printing contracts during the height of WWII and the immediate post-war era.  The Bushel Wording: The specific standard legal framing of "Net Contents One Volume Bushel" became strictly mandated under USDA standardized packaging rules during the late 1930s and carried directly through the 1940s.

Connell Bros. Co., Ltd. distributed apples out of San Francisco, sourcing fruit from growing regions across the West Coast — this Morjon design is documented as having been used on both California and Washington's Yakima Valley apples, a reminder that many Depression-era distributors sold under one brand name regardless of orchard location. The Mother Goose nursery-rhyme imagery of Little Boy Blue, tucked among blossoming shrubs, was a gentle, whimsical choice meant to appeal broadly on the grocer's shelf, a departure from the wildlife and heraldry themes so common on competing labels of the era.

The label was printed by Schmidt Litho Co., one of the largest and longest-running West Coast lithography houses, founded in 1872 by German immigrant Max Schmidt. His business burned down twice before he even reached San Francisco, and the 1906 earthquake leveled it a third time — yet he rebuilt each time, and the company thrived until merging with Stecher-Traung in 1966. It's easy to see, in the crispness of this label, why Schmidt was counted among California's great printing houses and a dominant name in crate label production for nearly a century.

A charming, storybook-inspired piece for a nursery, kitchen, or collection of early 20th-century American illustration.

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