Vintage 1960s Old Mission Citrus Crate Label 🍊 Redbanks Packing Co Woodlake CA For Sale

🍊 Original 1960s Old Mission Citrus Crate Label — Redbanks Packing Co., Woodlake, California

Offered to collectors of California citrus crate labels and late/strip-format material: an original Old Mission brand citrus crate label of the Redbanks Packing Co., Redbanks and Woodlake, California, dating to the 1960s. It is described from the sheet and from the available record of this small packer; where documentation is limited, that is stated plainly rather than filled in. Price, quantity and listing status are as set in the listing. This is a genuine period label in unused New Old Stock condition, offered exactly as pictured.

🏷 The Packer: Redbanks Packing Co.

The label names its maker precisely: \"Packed by Redbanks Packing Co., Redbanks, California,\" with the address \"34825 Road 192, Woodlake, California.\" Redbanks is a small locality in the Central Valley citrus belt of Tulare County, just west of Woodlake; orchards were established in the Redbanks area as early as 1894. The Redbanks Packing Co. (also recorded as Redbanks Fruit Co.) was a grower-and-packer operation shipping fruit under the \"Old Mission\" brand, which appears on the house\'s citrus and on its table grapes. Detailed corporate history for this particular packer is limited; it was one of the many small Central Valley fruit houses whose principal surviving trace is its crate labels. Note that the \"Old Mission\" name was used by more than one California packer historically; this is specifically the Redbanks registered version, as printed.

🔔 The Brand and Its Imagery

This is a long, narrow horizontal strip label. On a deep burgundy ground, the brand appears as \"OLD\" in a small tilted red block and \"Mission\" in large golden-yellow script across the width, with a small \"Brand\" beneath. A left-end vignette depicts a California mission church in warm color — a tall bell tower with a cross and arched belfry openings, a domed roofline, red-tiled roofs, an arched entry, palms and greenery beneath a cloud-filled sky — crossed by a golden ribbon. The mission is a romantic archetype rather than a documented, named building. Along the top the sheet reads \"Product of U.S.A.,\" with \"Reg. U.S. Pat. Office\" beneath the brand. The palette and printing are characteristic of the later crate-label period.

⛪ Format and Dimensions

A horizontal strip crate label measuring approximately 12 by 4 inches — the long, narrow end-label format used on wooden citrus crates, and a distinctive display sub-format prized for its proportions. The image is complete to the printed border.

🕰 Condition Report

• Type: Original 1960s lithographed citrus crate label; not a reproduction.
• Status: New Old Stock — never applied to a crate.
• Reverse: Clean blank stock, consistent with an unused label stored flat.
• Front: Deep, bright color; image whole and clear.
• Wear: Presents essentially as it left the printer; please see photographs for exact condition.
• Overall: A genuine, clean, displayable example, offered exactly as pictured.

📦 Era Note and Scarcity

Briefly, for context: paper crate labels dominated citrus branding from the 1880s through the 1940s, but the industry\'s shift to pre-printed cardboard cartons around 1956 ended the medium, and by the 1960s the great age of the crate label was largely over. Post-war examples are therefore generally less common in collections than pre-war labels. A clean, unused, dated strip label from a small named Central Valley packer is a specific artifact of the medium\'s final period, of interest to collectors working late and strip-format material.

🖼 Display and Care

The label frames strikingly as vintage graphic art; its long horizontal shape suits a space above a doorway or shelf and plays well grouped with squarer citrus labels. As an unused period sheet it needs no restoration; keep it flat, out of direct sun and away from damp, ideally with acid-free materials and UV-filtering glass. Any framing or conservation is at the buyer\'s discretion.

🎁 The Redbanks / Woodlake District

For the collector placing the packer: Woodlake lies in Tulare County, in the Central Valley citrus belt along the Sierra foothills east of Visalia — a major twentieth-century orange-growing and -shipping region. Redbanks, the locality the firm was named for, had orchards established as early as 1894. The Redbanks Packing Co. (also recorded as Redbanks Fruit Co.) operated there as a grower-packer at the address printed on the label, shipping under the \"Old Mission\" brand across its citrus and its table grapes. It was one of the numerous smaller, independent fruit houses of the belt, alongside the larger cooperative operations; documentation specific to this firm is limited, which is itself characteristic of the small regional packers of the period.

💛 Reading an Original From the Images

Originality is readable directly from the photographs. The reverse is bare, uncoated stock with no modern coating — the expected state of an unused period sheet stored flat. The face shows deep, even, layered lithographic ink rather than a uniform digital dot-screen, and the sheet is the true strip-format trade size and shape. The images are the definitive record and document these points.

❓ Honest Notes on the Brand and Its Collecting Appeal

Two candid points. First, the \"Old Mission\" name was used historically by more than one California packer; this sheet is specifically the Redbanks registered version, as printed, and should not be conflated with unrelated Old Mission brands from other houses. Second, the mission depicted is a romantic archetype rather than a documented, named building. As to collecting appeal: this is a late, post-war label in the long strip format, from a small named Central Valley packer — a combination (late date, strip format, minor packer) that fills specific corners collectors work to complete, and post-war examples are as a class less common than pre-war ones. Condition here is straightforward: an unused sheet with a clean blank back, requiring no restoration.

✨ The Central Valley Citrus Belt and the End of the Wooden Crate

The label\'s date and district are tied together. The Central Valley citrus belt of Tulare County — Woodlake, Exeter, Lindsay and their neighbors along the Sierra foothills — was a major twentieth-century orange-shipping region, moving fruit nationally through both large cooperatives and smaller independent grower-packers like Redbanks. By the time this label was printed, the medium was ending: the industry\'s shift from the wooden crate to the pre-printed cardboard carton, which moved decisively through the mid-1950s, eliminated the need for a separately pasted paper label. A Redbanks Old Mission strip label from the 1960s therefore sits at the very close of the tradition — a late product of a small foothill packer in a format that was already disappearing, which is precisely what makes clean post-war examples less common in collections than pre-war sheets.

🍊 Attribution and Honest Gaps

Candidly, the label is its own best documentation. It names \"Redbanks Packing Co., Redbanks, California,\" with the Woodlake address, and identifies the Old Mission brand and its registration; beyond that, detailed corporate history for this particular small packer is limited in the accessible record — an honest fact rather than a defect, and characteristic of the many minor Central Valley fruit houses of the era whose clearest surviving trace is their labels. Two cautions for the collector: the \"Old Mission\" name was used historically by more than one California packer and this Redbanks version should not be conflated with unrelated ones; and the mission depicted is a decorative archetype, not a documented named building. No printer or exact year beyond the documented 1960s period is claimed. The present sheet is a private-hands, unused example.

🏷 Woodlake and the Belt Today

A note on the district\'s continuity: the Tulare County citrus belt around Woodlake, Exeter and Lindsay remains active orange country today, one of the enduring centers of California citrus, even as the wooden crate and its labels long ago gave way to cardboard cartons and printed film. That continuity of place — living orchards where this label\'s fruit once grew — alongside the discontinuity of the packaging medium is part of what gives a late Redbanks strip label its interest: it marks the exact hinge point where an old, handsome way of branding fruit ended, in a region that kept right on growing it. For collectors of Central Valley citrus history, a documented small-packer label from that transition is a meaningful marker.

🔔 Buyer Notes

This is a single, individual period object, offered exactly as pictured; there is only the one, and the photographs are the definitive record of its condition. It is sold unrestored and needs no conservation. Buyers are encouraged to review every image closely and to judge the sheet\'s color, surface and edges directly before purchasing, with the honest attribution notes above kept in mind.

⛪ Summary

A genuine 1960s Old Mission citrus crate label of the Redbanks Packing Co., Woodlake, California — a small Tulare County grower-packer from the final years of the wooden crate — showing a golden mission bell tower with crosses and red tile roofs on deep burgundy, in the long horizontal strip format. Unused New Old Stock with a blank back, approximately 12 by 4 inches. A clean, scarcer, individual example offered exactly as pictured; please review all photographs, which are the definitive record of the item.