Wholesale Distributor Store Crate Shipping Labels

 1910 Spice Crate Labels ~ Set of 9

Railroad Shipping Crate & Carton Documents

This set of labels was to identify larger wholesale lots of cartons of Grocery Spices when they were shipped by rail and stage lines to the Western Frontier retailers. Large Grocery processors and distributors like John Blaul’s Sons had railhead warehouses on the Mississippi for shipping barrels, Gunny sacks, crates and cartons to western towns like Dodge City, Denver, etc. Without distribution networks like this, the west would not have been settled as quickly. Each gummed label was for a carton or crate containing 36 Spice cans like this one.

John Blaul’s Sons Co. Burlington and Cedar Rapids, Iowa. was a mid 1800’s and early 1900’s regional grocery processor & distributor, who brought in unrefined food items, and groceries in large quantities on barges up the Mississippi River and processed & repackaged them into goods in their own brands of boxes and distributed them by rail to Ma & Pa grocers and General Stores and sent them Out West, for settlers and railroad towns in the expanding western Territories. The west bound Railheads all had starting points in central Iowa at the Mississippi River back then. Blauls specialized in long lasting items like Coffee Roasting, Tea drying, Spices, Dried Fruits and other items they could process and preserve for the long trek to the remote frontier retailers and ultimately to the isolated Farms and cowboys saddle bags.

These crate labels have the 4 B Logo for Blaul's and readily identified the contents, and was usually on a pallet of goods bound for “Out West”. A small number of these unused assortment were found in the old warehouse before demolition in the 1970’s. You get the following, unused gummed crate labels;

Cloves, 3 dozen, 1 oz cans

Mustard, 3 dozen, 2 oz. cans

Whole Nutmeg, 3 dozen, 2 oz. cans

Cinnamon, 3 dozen, 2 oz. cans

White Pepper, 3 dozen, 1 ½ oz. Cans

Allspice, 3 dozen, 3 oz. cans

Generic, 3 dozen, 3 oz. cans, for mixed lots or special orders.

Nutmeg, 3 dozen, 1 ½ oz. Cans

Ginger, 3 dozen, 2 oz. Cans

Most are 6 by 5 ½ inches. Two are 7 ¼ by 5 inches. You get the complete set of 9 different labels. No rips, No tears, No folds, Perfect Condition. These frame well and are a piece of America’s history.

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