1913 A's World Series pennant on eBay - real?

[scooter729]

This pennant has run a couple of times without reaching its reserve:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...vip=true&rt=nc

I don't know much about pennants but have seen a few posted here in the past which have been deemed fakes. Is this another of those, which is why it's not getting many bids to meet the reserve? Or is it a real item just with a high reserve?

Thanks!

[Ladder7]

Not a pennant guy, but believe it should read "world's series". Otherwise, I would think folk art. Note, I ain't calling the seller scammer.. just yet

[perezfan]

Hard to tell with these generic style ones. There's a similar generic looking Cleveland Naps Pennant on ebay that is more than likely a "concoction".

This Athletics one actually looks right in terms of the material, embroidery and overall style. I think that the reason it failed to sell (twice) can be chalked up to 4 things...

1. People are suspicious of its authenticity
2. The graphics are generic in nature, and not too exciting
3. There's a very conspicuous missing chunk of felt (lessening its appeal)
4. The seller has probably set the reserve too high.

I believe it got close to $900 the first time around, and still failed to make reserve. The greed factor and unreasonable reserves seem worse than ever on ebay these days. If it's not outrageous Buy It Now prices, it's high reserves. I guess many of these sellers aren't clued into the crappy economy (or aren't very eager to sell until things pick up).

[vintagesportflips]

I saw this pennant at an estate auction (didn't see it in person), and had placed what I thought was a pretty good absentee bid on it, but didn't pick it up. I know that so far the bidding has not reached what it sold for at the auction house, so the seller llikely has his reserve set to ensure he doesn't lose money on it. In my experience watching auctions on ebay, reserve auctions often don't do that well, and often don't meet their reserves, while if they were started at 9.99 and let run without reserve they would have fared better.