Collection No. 16

Description

The three bear characters in the last line of the label specimen are sometimes associated with the Grateful Dead. Here’s the story on that, from the music web site extrachill.com (boldface added):

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Initially designed by artist Bob Thomas to appear on the back cover of the band’s 1973 release, The History of the Grateful Dead, Volume 1 (Bear’s Choice), the bears have become deeply ingrained in the culture surrounding the Grateful Dead, and have taken on layers of symbolic meaning over the years. They were designed for Owsley “Bear” Stanley, who both engineered and recorded to tape many of the shows that the Grateful Dead performed in the 60s and 70s. Before the album and the bears, there existed a 36-point lead slug that was used in printing as a font type. [Sic, sic, and sic.] Thomas used that leaden bear as his basis for the design, which features a more cartoon style bear doing the “dancing” motion.

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