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Old 12-10-2020, 09:59 AM
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Mike Kendall
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Location: Indiana
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Domer05 View Post
"A & Co. N.Y." = Annin & Co., a legendary flag maker based in New York City that's been in business since the 1850s. For many decades they were the largest maker of US flags in the business; and I suspect that's still the case.

In the early 1900s Annin was one of the largest makers of felt novelty pennants and banners. Most of these were collegiate pennants. They also made pennants for fraternal orders. Apart from their signature A & Co. label, these pennants often featured three pairs of tassels made from silk or satin. They were gorgeous.

By the mid-1910s Annin was offering felt pennants in both the sewn letter and screen printed styles.

The only professional baseball pennant I can definitively attribute to them was a 1916-dated Boston Red Sox World Champions pennant (I know because it's actually featured in their catalogue from that year). It's a red/white monochrome pennant ... Rick Haskins owns it, I recall.

At some point the company dropped out of the felt novelty business; but, I'm still unclear precisely when that was. Their 1954 catalogue still shows collegiate pennants as part of their offerings; but I can't say I've ever seen anything with their label/mark on it that's that new.

I suspect they may have stopped using labels all together by the 1930s. If so, that may explain why most of the pennants attributable to them came from the turn of the century--not the mid-century.

They probably made a lot more pennants than we know of....
Thank you so much for the info.
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