Vintage Pricing Lables (1930s)
VINTAGE PRICING LABLES (1930s)
This is a collection of thirteen vintage pricing labels from the 1930s / 1940s. I bought them a few months ago and I think they’re really wonderful. I have about a dozen of each design and these images show just one of each. They were from a label manufacture’s old stock and therefore have never been used. They’ve got monetary values on the front and gummed backs for licking and sticking on boxes and products for sale in shops.
They would have been intended for a range of products and the pricing is in ‘old money’ which came in: pounds, shillings and pence. There were 12 pence to a shilling and 20 shillings to a pound, making a pound worth 240 pence. This sounds completely illogical by today’s standards, so here’s a breakdown…
Name Symbol 2020 Value
Pounds £1 £65.79
Shillings 1/- or 1’- £3.30
Pence 1d 27p
The most expensive value in this collection is on the black and yellow star design, which reads 12’11, making the product it would have been stuck on worth £42.57 today. The largest label reads 1’- and the surface was made from pure gold foil. This was likely to make the product look more luxurious than it actually was and is 64mm (2.5″) in diameter.
Despite being functional, throw away items, I think these old labels are so beautiful and exquisitely designed. They all have a magnificent quality about them and every single one is embossed, with bold, striking text. I love the range of colours used for the designs, from the elegant reds to the deep blues and bright, foiled golds. I also like the vague statement of “Guaranteed Pure” which was undoubtedly used on many products, few of which I fear were actually “Pure”.
