M&B Stock No. 23 "Primavera"

General
There is a fair amount of confusion with this stock image. To begin with, it is often confused with the very similar Demeter (M&B No. 24) version, the difference being that "Primavera" is a springtime scene and she carries a garland of flowers, whereas "Demeter" is an autumn harvest scene and she carries a bundle of barley. There is also an early Standard Advertising (pre-merger) sign version with an expanded version that includes some other figures in addition to Primavera. Then to make things more confusing, Shonk also issued at least one tray with this image (Independent Brewing). Apparently, at this time advertising was not considered copyrightable under the prevailing US copyright laws, which is why certain designs appear with different manufacturers’ marks (perhaps most evident with West End Brewing’s Lady Liberty tray which carries marks by AAW and Kaufmann & Strauss). M&B never titled this image, the Primavera name actually comes from the Shonk version. This design does not appear in any of the catalogues we have access to.

Size, Shape and Message Placement
Known tray examples are all oval with the low pie shaped rim and rolled edge. Most tray versions show up sporting a red drape rim, although we have encountered a version (Independent Brewing) with a green drape rim. Like a number of other images from this timeframe, there are also narrow oval SFT sign versions with faux woodgrain rims. Advertising text (and sometime symbols or logos) appear both on the rim, usually in black text or on the face of the tray, usually with gold text or script. There are also a few examples of narrow SFT signs featuring a faux woodgrain “frame”.

Hager & Price
Hager does discuss this design in relation to drape rim trays from the same timeframe and mentions that the narrow oval SFT sign versions also exist. He does include a picture in his catalog, but it is out of sequence, most likely because many examples do not carry a stock number on them. There are a fair number of brewery examples and prices are strong. For the stock samples and most non-brewers prices are modest for examples in good condition.