Antique c1907 Sylmar Brand Olive Oil Bottle Original Label Los Angeles 10” For Sale

Offered here is a striking circa 1907–1910 Sylmar Brand olive-oil bottle, produced for the Los Angeles Olive Growers Association of Los Angeles, California. Standing an impressive 10 inches tall, this example retains its large, richly illustrated original paper label—a remarkable survival on a food bottle more than a century old.

The bottle is permanently embossed on the reverse:

SYLMAR BRAND
LOS ANGELES
OLIVE GROWERS ASSN
LOS ANGELES, CAL.

The front label reads:

PURE CALIFORNIA
OLIVE OIL
SYLMAR BRAND – TRADE MARK
GRAND PRIZE ST. LOUIS 1904
HIGHEST AWARD PORTLAND 1905
LOS ANGELES OLIVE GROWERS ASSOCIATION
LOS ANGELES, CAL.

The Wonderful Original Label

The oversized lithographed label is the star of this bottle. It features a beautifully rendered branch laden with olives, metallic-gold-style lettering, purple accents and dimensional shaded typography. Its appearance is unmistakably from the golden age of American package design, when even an everyday kitchen staple could be presented like a luxury product.

The label proudly advertises the company’s Grand Prize at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair and its Highest Award at Portland in 1905. These printed honors provide valuable dating evidence: the label could not have been produced before the conclusion of the 1905 exposition.

The Sylmar trademark was filed in October 1905 and formally registered in February 1906, placing this award-bearing label firmly in the period immediately afterward.

Dating the Complete Example

This bottle appears to represent the transitional period when automatic bottle production was beginning to replace traditional hand finishing. Its early machine-produced top retains considerable irregularity and character, including a distinctly uneven lower collar and subtle manufacturing crudeness not normally encountered on later machine-made food bottles.

Considering:

• The 1904 and 1905 awards printed on the label
• The 1906 registration of the Sylmar trademark
• The early machine-made construction
• The absence of the company’s later 1915 exposition award

A responsible date for the complete bottle is circa 1907–1910, with the latter part of the 1900s appearing most likely.

The Los Angeles Olive Growers Association

The association was established during the transformation of the northern San Fernando Valley into one of America’s most ambitious agricultural developments. Beginning in the 1890s, vast stretches of former brush-covered land were planted with olive trees. By approximately 1906, the Sylmar property was being celebrated as the largest olive grove in the world.

The company produced both bottled olives and olive oil under the Sylmar Brand. Period photographs show workers filling glass bottles at the association’s San Fernando Valley operation, while crates of finished oil waited for shipment. Sylmar products were sold beyond California and reached markets throughout the United States and overseas.

The name Sylmar—generally interpreted as a combination of words suggesting a “forest” or “sea” of trees—became closely associated with the enormous silvery-green olive groves that once dominated this portion of the valley.

This bottle dates from the height of that enterprise, when California olive oil was being promoted as a pure, prestigious domestic alternative to imported European oils.

Size

Approximately 10 inches tall.

Condition

The glass is bright, clean and shiny, with no chips, no cracks and no haze. There is only a faint amount of dust inside.

The original paper label remains remarkably complete and visually impressive for its age. It displays expected antique wear, including overall toning and spotting, a vertical split or crease near the center, small areas of surface loss and scattered minor edge and surface wear. Please examine the photographs closely, as they clearly document the label’s condition and form an important part of the description.

Despite its honest age-related wear, the label remains boldly legible and retains its handsome olive illustration, colored printing and much of its original visual impact.

A wonderful early California agricultural bottle—and a particularly desirable display example because it combines the correct embossed Sylmar bottle with its exceptionally scarce original award label.