Packaging Labels Question

[Elaine Kessinger]

I have heard that labels from "our" period are black ink on off-white or colored paper. I have seen merchants specializing in paper products selling very colorful and almost lithographic labels, claiming they are from "our" period.

What's the story? If the colorful labels are "new" then what would be the situations they should correctly be used? If the colorful labels are correct too, how did the "only B&W" myth get started? If the colorful labels are not correct, why would merchants who are otherwise very well researched market them as correct? (..and I'm not trying to "call anyone out" just get to the bottom of what I've been told vs. what I'm seeing)

Thanks for adding your thoughts. :-)

[BobSullivanPress]

Re: Packaging Labels Question

The short answer is that lithography and 4-color printing were not around in the 1860s. Here's what I mean:
In the 1860s, most label printing was done with wood or metal blocks. Each block was inked with a different color ink, and the results were sometimes colorful. But it was somewhat time consuming, because the paper had to be passed through the press once for each color. If the paper slipped, you got some printing that was not exactly lined up. You can see examples of this in a lot of original patriotic envelopes.

This is not to say that there wasn't some unbelievable engraving going on. Just look at period currency to see some examples of the engraver's art.

But what separates Civil War-era color printing from later, 1880ish color printing was shades of color. This process of blending and shading colors was invented in the 1880s and produced the dazzling labels that many vendors pass off as 19th century labels. While it's true that they are 19th century labels, they are most certainly not from the Civil War period.

This is not to say that labels were dull or plain. There were gilt labels, made by using an adhesive instead of ink, printing the adhesive on the paper, and then sprinkling crushed bronze or other metal onto the paper. It would stick to the surface where the adhesive was printed. There were different colors of paper. In my collection I own yellow, rose, blue, and white paper examples. And I certainly don't claim to have all the colors.

The one ink color that is rare is green. This is because one of the elements of period green ink is arsenic. Enough said? But again, I own a couple of original patriotic envelopes that have green ink printed on them.

If you'd like to see some nice documented labels, here's a site:

http://home.datacomm.ch/wineman/#Labels

This site contains wine bottle labels over the years. Scroll down to the list by country and click on the links to the labels from 1801-1850.

There's another piece to this puzzle. The national trademark law was passed in 1874 (and was fought all the way to the Supreme Court). While I don't like to make sweeping generalizations, it woudn't make sense to put the words "Trade Mark" on an US label before 1874, because it wouldn't mean anything. I generally equate this with the idea of someone claiming a label to be from the 1970s with nutritional information on it. While it certainly would be possible, there was no legal reason to do so, and so we can date labels with nutritional information on them to be from no earlier than 1994, when the law made them mandatory. Therefore, in a sweeping generalization, I would say that any US label that contains the words "Trade Mark" is NOT a Civil War era label.

Rahter than a trademark, what does appear on many period labels is a facsimile of the signature of the maker. You will often see a signature someplace on a label, and words to the effect of "Don't accept substitutions" or "Not valid without signature". And because advertisements were still in their infancy, you would often see the address of the maker someplace on the label so that you would know where to purchase more.

If you want to make general rules of what defines a Civil-War era label, I'd suggest this:
1. Printed with colors, but not shaded colors.
2. No appearance of the words "Trade mark".
3. The maker's address, including street address, city, and state.
4. A facsimile of the maker's signature somewhere on the label.

Of course, there are exceptions to every rule.

[GenuineInformation]

Re: Packaging Labels Question

Thank you for posting that excellent information, Mr. Sullivan--it's most helpful.