Abstract: A rotary label extracting carrier picks up glue from a glue roller and applies the glue to the back of the frontal label in a label magazine. The label extracting carrier picks up the frontal label with the glue and carries the glued label to a gripper cylinder having gripper fingers which grip the leading edge of glued label and peel it off the label extracting carrier for transfer to a bottle or other object. The circular pitch of the gripper cylinder is smaller than the circular pitch of the label extracting carrier, and the label extracting carrier is rotated synchronously with the gripper cylinder in such manner that the peripheral speed of the label extracting carrier is greater than the peripheral speed of the gripper cylinder. This arrangement produces a smooth peeling action of the labels as they are transferred from the label extracting carrier to the gripper cylinder and thereby substantially eliminates crushing and tearing of the labels.