The Crescent Manufacturing Company of Seattle, Washington was established in 1886 as a renaming by new owners of the Larsen Extract Company founded three years earlier. Crescent made flavoring extracts and imported coffee, tea, spices, and nuts. Its flagship product was an artificial maple flavor called “Mapleine” that debuted in 1908. That product proved popular during the Great Depression since consumers short on cash could use it to make a maple-flavored syrup for less than the cost of real maple syrup. Another successful innovation came in the 1950s. Crescent was the first company to package nuts premeasured in cups specifically for cooking. McCormick & Company, Inc. of Baltimore, Maryland purchased Crescent’s retail operations in 1989 with Crescent continuing to produce products in a consolidated factory. In fact, you can still buy “Crescent Mapleine” today.
Crescent issued a set of 20 poster stamps to promote its products. According to the dealer from whom I purchased this set (a poster stamp specialist), it dates from circa 1920. The stamps are uniform in size at 41 by 60 millimeters and perforated 12. Whether they were printed se-tenant in a single sheet is unknown to me but certainly possible. As you can see in the illustrations, these stamps have wonderful graphics with bold colors. They are educational to a degree, as they show the various exotic locales around the world where the company sourced its coffee, tea, and spices. Most of the locales are likely familiar to collectors. More obscure may be the Malabar Coast in India and the Banda Islands (a.k.a. the Spice Islands) in Indonesia. Interestingly, Mombasa—the capital of Kenya—is misspelled, though perhaps that was the correct spelling in 1920. Twelve stamps depict people in native dress, and five depict animals including a mythical one—a dragon. Only one locale is represented as a landscape scene. The set is rounded out by two stamps without locales, one for baking powder and another for “Mapleine.”
Crescent had their own printing department where they printed labels for their products and other items. Meanwhile, the printer of these poster stamps is unknown. Thus, it’s tempting to think that Crescent may have printed this set of stamps in-house.
References:
Anonymous. “Crescent Foods.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crescent_Foods. Accessed May 8, 2025.
Warren, James R. “Crescent Manufacturing Co. (Seattle).” https://www.historylink.org/File/2006. Accessed May 8, 2025.
Warner, Jessica. “Collection on the Crescent Manufacturing Company, 1909-1962.” https://archiveswest.orbiscascade.org/ark:/80444/xv24139 . Accessed May 8, 2025.
–by member Michael R. Florer