Here is a variety of Wattie’s fruit label recreations I’ve been working on over the last few weeks:
First up, the clingstone peaches label dates from 1936 and was used by Fly Creative for their website when they did their successful 2006-2007 “NZ Icons” merchandise project in conjunction with some of new Zealand’s biggest Brands including Fresh Up, Chelsea, Fleming’s and Bluebird as well as Wattie’s. This comprised of T-shirts in custom designed tins, as well as a set of postcards for all these companies. This is probably the earliest label I have seen from this brand.
The jam label comes from footage of the Wattie’s archive made by Auckland historian and documentary maker Peter Michel – who worked for them creating a documentary to celebrate their 75th anniversary just a couple of years ago:
http://www.familydvd.co.nz/videos/watties-75th-anniversary
He was kind enough to lend me some images to work with that he gathered during the research process; and as well as that he generously gave me a copy of the film. I used the background (to recreate that fruit illustration would usually take days of work) and remade the harder-edged graphics over it to clean it up and bring it back to its former glory. A gorgeous design. I’m guessing it dates from the late 1940s to early 1950s. I know for sure it was in production in 1954 or earlier.
The prune can label is one of the last ones that I am putting up from part of the alleged former merchandising manager’s collection which I most recently covered here in late April:
http://longwhitekid.wordpress.com/2012/04/24/canny-conservation/
That post tells the story as I know it of the collection that was on offer early last year on Trade Me, and my deduction on its origins. Thankfully, for a change this label was rather painless to recreate. Small mercies and all that. It’s from the same range that I can definitely verify were in use and on the supermarket shelves in 1963-1964. I imagine they were around a bit longer than that, though.
Hopefully I’ll be back on the weekend with another post to try and catch up on things here.
Hoping you can help me … I live in a former Catholic girls boarding school and recently found a stash of old food tins – with a spoon – under the floorboards in one of the old dormitory bedrooms.
Would love to try to date these artefacts – one of which bears a similar Watties label as shown above. Is there any chance I could send you photos of these items to get your opinion?
Oh, wow! that sounds fascinating. Yes, I would be pleased to assist you in dating the items. I keep a large database of information on old brands and businesses so this should be no problem. Of course if there is something I have not seen before I will be quite excited! You can send images to darianzamdesign@gmail.com
Anything up to 6MB per email, or if gmail to gmail you can send up to 25 MB per email.
Look forward to it, cheers.