Let me preface this post by saying that I know less about pennants than most (if not all) of you on this thread. To me, the history of the event or time period the pennant is tied to is more important than the pennant’s aesthetics, and I like finding photos that picture specific pennants I have in my collection. I believe I have 2 early 1957-58 LA Dodger pennants that were made up for special events and not sold publicly. I also have a third pennant that also dates to a 1958 event, but I am unsure if it was also sold to the public.
here is the first one, I will post the other 2 later.
A huge civic welcoming luncheon honors the Dodgers on Oct 28, 1957 at the Statler Hotel in Los Angeles. Pictures of the event are below, and show a huge room filled with tables and mostly men in suits, and pennants like the one pictured below appear to be the centerpieces on each table. There is also a picture of O’Malley with people waving the pennants around him.
1957 welcome dinner.jpg
1957 welcome dinner 2.jpg
1957 welcome dinner 3.jpg
The pennant measures approximately 12” x 18” and is screen printed. There is no spine, the pennant was stapled to a small stick instead. The city of LA organized the event and I imagine they wanted to keep costs down, which probably resulted in the smaller size and lack of a spine being sewn on. In addition, the luncheon was only a couple of weeks after Walter O’Malley announced the team would move there from Brooklyn, so time could have also been a factor in the simplicity of the construction. Given the number apparently produced for the event, it is somewhat surprising to me that this pennant doesn’t appear for sale very often. The only other one I have seen lately came from the Vin Scully collection.
Rick