La Encartada - Vintage Beret Labels

I have published posts on La Encartada before, but never found good pictures of labels used by the famous manufacturer from Balmaseda.

The factory was established by Marcos Arena Bermejillo in 1892 and continued production until it's closure a century later, in 1992. The principal product has always been the Basque beret, supplied in large numbers to the police and military in Spain and abroad.

 In 2007 the factory re-opened as a museum, displaying a range of machines for processing wool originating in many parts of Europe. La Encartada displays a traditional Basque factory, but it also shows how entrepreneurs were able to integrate machines from many European countries into a single manufacturing process.

Nearby are several workers’ houses, some built at the same time as the factory and some from the early twentieth century.

Some interesting links on La Encartada: the museum's web site in English; on the history and archaeology of the (workers) buildings at the La Encartada premises; information on La Encartada and berets (in Spanish) with a video clip.