I have this pennant, but mine does not have a tag on the back. Leads me to believe this is most likely correct.

This is funny. I’ve not seen this repro before, but it has all the tell tale signs of a Mitchell and Ness. Tassles, placement, stitching, etc. weird. I have bought and sold 3 or 4 of the original pennant over the years. There was a small find of them in a trunk in MA (I think) many years ago that were sold on eBay. They’re the most common of the early pennants, but still incredibly beautiful.

Thanks for the info, Jason...

Yes, I've always thought that one (the original undated and oversized version) is the most "common" of all the oversized teens pennants. Makes sense that there was a small find, as lots of them are NRMT-MT condition.

That's right. The maker sewed the retailer's/distributor's/concessionaire's label on, for them, during the manufacturing process. They would have done this for any retailer that ordered a particularly high volume of pennants from them, at wholesale prices, of course.

I had always thought Trench was the first maker to do this; but, as you'll see in my last post, actually, The Reproduction Co. was the first, as they happily sewed Spalding's label on collegiate and baseball pennants they made and supplied the Chicago-based company with.

I was sort of familiar with reproduction co from the baseball pennants, but did not know about the early football pennants and others, or the role that this company played in modernizing pennants. Really enjoyed reading your piece Kyle.

Also, I noticed that, for me, the pennant fever link at the bottom of your posts doesn't take me to your webapge. I get some kind of error. Not sure If I'm the only one. I find it by searching pennant fever on google. The pennant factory one works fine.

Same here.... The first link won't work for me either. Probably an easy fix that is beyond my tech expertise.

Same. It’s not you, Mark. It probably wouldn’t ever work for Bart.

"IDIOT." :eek:

That's what I get for putting a semi-colon in my signature block (touching the hyperlink).

Thanks for pointing that out, guys.

Additionally, I thanked a few of you privately for letting me use images of pennants you either own or shared on your websites, channels, etc. in my last piece. Now, let me publicly thank you:

Mark S./YouTube: TheStuffOfGreatness (perezfan)
Rob G./feltfootball.com (fballguy)
Matt Z./ebay: pennantdynasty
Keith J./Youtube: VintageSportsFlips (mrkrab)

...And anyone else on the thread that shared a photo I used, but forgot to credit. My apologies. But thank you just the same.

To those that read my last piece on Reproduction Co., and made it to the end, thank you. Look for the above contributors' pennant cameos somewhere in there--I promise, they're there.

Here is a recent pickup. I bought a lot of 47 different (mostly travel) pennants to get this one Billy Ball pennant. It is surprisingly hard to find. I know that at least a few of you also appreciate these types of early 1980s rarities.

If you were around the Bay Area in the early 1980s, you can probably still hear the radio jingle in your head "Billy Ball, A's baseball, why's everybody always picking on me?"

Also known as the Shooty Babbit era … lol

I almost posted this in response to the Billy Ball pennant, but because it's completely off topic on a pennant thread, I didn't.

But, mention of Shooty Babbit forces my hand and it's completely on topic for Billy Ball.

This took me a bunch of games at the Coliseum in 1981 (each a 200 mile round trip drive) to put together.

Note how most of the signatures are readable, with barely any overlap, it was a different time.

For me the key is Mike Norris, who was very stingy with his autographs, I won him over by calling him Cy Young instead of Mr. Norris, an award he deserved to win the previous year.

I had to google Mr. Babbit. :cool:

I’m not sure why I keep finding late 50s Braves pennants but here’s another one that I just picked up. This is the less valuable “with Spahn“ version but it’s still a beauty. Look at those names!

I like it. I wonder if it was meant to be monochromatic or if it just missed getting additional screenings. The latter definitely happens. :confused:

I’m not sure, but I feel like it has a classic, simple look to it

Nice pickup... I've seen it both ways (monochromatic and colored) and yours is rarer. Condition looks great too... this type is often found beaten up. Great score!

Thanks! I was very happy to have found it. I know there’s a version without Spahn that’s supposed to be worth more, but I like this version better with Spahn.

I like it better too. Perceived rarity aside, you've gotta have Spahnie on there!

No question!

Thats a great Braves pickup.

I'm off for Christmas now so I have the time to post a recent arrival. It's a cloth pennant. I haven't seen many with the single color graphics. I wonder if they just ran out of black ink or they just created different variations?

Do you own the other(s) you speak of? I’d like to see a pic.

Gary.... Nice one! So tough to find a clean copy of that pennant... an underrated one for sure. Those white cloth pennants just didn't stand the test of time very well, but yours looks immaculate. Good get!

I only have the one in my post. But here's an image of the two-color version.

Thanks! 👍

Hello all. I have had this pennant since 1972 when my grandmother died. It was part of the sports collection my grandpa acquired before he died in 1939. He attended world series games in 1926, 1930 and 1931 in St. Louis. I assume this pennant is from one of those years. On the back spine of the pennant is an embroidered label that says Baldwin Regalia Company, ST. Louis MO. I joined this forum while I was trying to research the pennant which led me to Mike Egner and his vintage pennant price guide. After talking to him, I sent him pics of the pennant and he included it in the 2nd vintage price guide. This pennant is on page 207 if you have a copy. My question is, has anyone here seen another copy of this pennant or any pennant made by the Baldwin Regalia Co.? I have been following this thread all these years and have not seen another one show up here. This pennant left me a clue that there are more out there somewhere. Thanks! Brad

Terrific story. Amazing what's out there!

Very cool, Brad! If you’ve been following this thread, you’ll know our resident researcher is Kyle aka Domer. We’re all “pennant guys”, but Kyle is the go to for the old stuff. Hopefully, he will weigh in. If not Kyle, there are other very knowledgeable guys who regularly contribute to this thread. Can you post a picture of the tag? Also, what does your pennant measure? I’m looking forward to learning more!

Thanks' Hank and Rob. I have read every post on this thread from the beginning. Thank you Rob for starting it. Looks like its every ones favorite thread. A friend of mine made the frame for this pennant and he included at least 50 screws to hold the back on. I'm not ready to take it apart again. I did send Mike Egner a pic of the label before I framed it but, I did not save it. The pennant measures 34 inches long and the spine is 15 inches. I really hope to see if there are any more out there. If not, I would like to see others post pics of their vintage Cardinal pennants. Thanks again, Brad

That's great pennants Brad.

I found a couple of listings for pennants made by the same company

https://robertedwardauctions.com/auc...g-ebbets-field

https://www.huntauctions.com/online/...=440&lot_qual=

It looks like the company still exists. https://regaliamfg.com/

I wonder if they maintain any sort of company history?

Baldwin Regalia Co., St. Louis, MO
 

I hadn't heard much about Baldwin Regalia Co. before today. A simple google search revealed they're still in business, specializing in the production of outdoor flags d/b/a Baldwin Preismeyer, now located in the suburban St. Louis area. See:

About Baldwin Priesmeyer
Our company was founded in 1908 by the Chauncey R. Baldwin family and remained in the family until 1985. Throughout our long history, we have always been located and operated in the city of St. Louis, until moving to Brentwood Missouri in March of 2003, expanding and modernizing our facilities. We moved again in March of 2023 to St Louis County outside of Creve Coeur and Chesterfield. We maintain a reputation for quality, efficiency, and prompt delivery and service.Over the years Baldwin Regalia (the original name) has manufactured or worked with a wide variety of products - many of which we no longer produce. Some of these products include the manufacture of chenille letters, horse blankets, drapes, window valances, pillow tops, jockey suits, and felt caps. Diminishing demand for these products and the introduction of more efficient machines and materials resulted in the company's departure from these markets in the 1950s and 1960s.

So, they undoubtedly dabbled in felt novelty pennants during the "gas house gang" era, when the red birds were routinely playing in the world series. That so, doesn't look like they made a lot of felt pennants over the years; and, probably none since the 1940s.

I've looked at a lot of trade catalogues from the 20th century and I've never seen this company listed as a recognized manufacturer of felt pennants. So, I'm thinking they only made pennants when the cards played in the world series?

Additionally, I suppose we can't entirely rule this manufacturer out as the mystery maker behind the "grommet pennant" series made between 1919 into the 1940s: https://pennantfactory.weebly.com/bl...champs-pennant

Baldwin Regalia Co.
 

Here's the two known burgee flags, each measuring approximately 116" in length. Although the Phillies burgee listed by Hunt says it came from Wrigley, I believe this to be incorrect: it more likely came from Ebbets Field, where the team had a tradition of flying a solid blue "BROOKLYN" burgee beside a similar one for the visiting team, flying on an opposite pole outside the famed facade.

Here's a photo taken outside Ebbets Field during the 1956 World Series, Yankees vs. Dodgers. (The Yankees burgee was solid white with "NEW YORK" embroidered in black, visible behind the American flag in the photo.)

Thank you Domer for all that information! Did not even think of the possibility of it being the "mystery maker". BTW the label you posted is the exact same as the one on my pennant! Brad

Gary and Kyle solved the mystery” within 3 hours. :p

Gonna have to come up with some tougher mysteries. :cool:

That’s an amazing pennant. What’s truly amazing is, with this surely being the only known example and no evidence of sales, the price guide threw up a value of … $250-350! What? Sample of size 0. … I can only guess that this pennant would fetch anywhere between $1500 and $5000 in auction, maybe more. Cardinals have some aggressive collectors and there just aren’t many super old oversized Cards pennants out there.

Completely agree!

VERY happy to add this to my collection! Bocca of course saw it, too, and he was gracious enough to let me go for it. It was a long seven days waiting for the auction to end. I increased my max bid four times! It was another long nine days waiting for it to arrive, because the USPS decided to send it on a U.S. tour. :mad: When I first saw this pennant, I thought "oh, someone replaced the 1962 team picture with a Falstaff postcard." Then, it dawned on me that this pennant is always black. Bocca searched Worthpoint and could not find another orange example. I know of another Giants collector who saw the pennant, but the Falstaff pic is what he saw and the color variation didn't "compute." I am actually glad JR just lists stuff as he finds it and doesn't bother with an iron, etc. Is this cloth (see blurry picture of the frayed thread)? Another odd thing is how the spine thread is black on the front and tan on the back. Even after picking off the remnants of the old spine, I'm not sure how this stitching is done. The replaced spine is temporary...it's in two pieces, as I didn't have enough black felt on hand. Anyway, happy to have this...it's been awhile since I've found a new Giants pennant.

That’s a sweet Cardinals pennant. I believe this is most likely from those years in the 20’s. I have never seen a Cardinals pennant like this, but have seen other similar styles. Maybe not a one off, but most likely a single survivor. Possibly custom made for some type of display. Coming up with prices on these is difficult, but I agree it’s most like in that $2500 to 5k range. The stitching with the Cardinal is outstanding.

Sweet variation! Why did you take the picture out?

The picture was completely wrong and I couldn’t very well iron it with the picture still attached. A buddy has the “right” picture, which he is going to give me.

Thank you guys for the comments on my Cardinal pennant. That pennant price guide came out 10 years ago and I even thought then that it was valued pretty low compared to some others in the book. I guess they always look better in hand and Mike Egner only saw pictures. With that I was still hoping to see some more vintage Cardinal pennants. Does any one have more to post? Thanks!

Brad, here are my best Cardinals pennants. One very subtle difference between the two ‘46 WS pennants.

OK. So the original was the B&W as on the black pennant, and it was damaged or gone so the owner made the color one fit? He did a pretty good job! Was that replacement noted in the offering?

Nice Cardinal pennants! I see the #9 on one of the '46 pennants. My favorite there is the 1939. Thanks!

Took me a while to find the “subtle difference,” but I found it. :p

Thanks for posting!

Yes, yes and no.

I would beg to differ on the “pretty good job” on the replacement. Yes, it (kind of) fit but did you see the “vintage” masking tape on the back side? :p

I think Rob needs to put the 1962 picture in the orange pennant. It seems like that is what should be there. It does seem like the Falstaff pic is not right. 1962 is the only known team photo pennant for the Giants.

On the black 1962 team pennants, the image is glued to the felt. For this orange pennant, the felt is cut. Rob, does that cut look professional to you? Or more like a hack job?

Really kind of a mystery. At last year's National, football Rob picked up a copy of the black pennant for me that had no picture. It did have the WC mark, like this new orange pennant. It is also not all that hard to find an original copy (i.e., correct size) of the 1962 team photo that goes on the pennant. I have one (that I'm going to someday glue onto the blank pennant) and I've seen others for sale. I wonder if the WC concessionaire assembled the pennants on site (as opposed to them coming assembled from Trench) and never got around to assembling everything, probably because of a decrease in demand after the 1962 World Series.

But that doesn't explain why nobody has ever seen an orange copy before. Hard to believe there can be only one.

And nice Cardinals pennants everyone.

The opening/no opening hadn’t even occurred to me. Sure enough, the team photo on my black pennant is glued to the front with no cutout. The cutout on the orange pennant looks completely “professional” - sharp edges and no overcut at the corners. I know there are other team photo pennants with the cutout. Maybe Domer has some insight into this variation in the manufacturing process?

I guess I’m going to need a Giants team photo with a bit of a border if I’m going to glue it from the back…

Most of the Trench picture pennants from the early 60s had cardboard pictures that were affixed with a larger rectangle of clear tape. The picture itself seemed to be about the same size as the cutout, and if it was put together sloppily you’d see gaps.

In the early 1960s, Trench used a dye cutter to remove the rectangular portion of the picture window. They made so many photo pennants, this machine was a worthwhile investment. As Greg noted, they typically used a photo printed on a cardstock-like paper that was affixed to the back with a pre-cut, rectangular clear tape. Additionally, their photos were, at least in the early 1960s, printed exclusively for their use; and bore their name and/or Sportservice's name on the reverse, along with a team roster/caption.

After 1962, Trench's photo backs no longer bore their name. By the 1970s, they occasionally used post cards, supplied by other vendors, for the photo.

Other manufacturers of course dabbled in photo pennants in the 1960s. ASCO's photos often came from post cards, supplied by other vendors. WGN made a few photo pennants as well; however, they got a bit lazy: they just stapled the photo to the pennant's front-side, thereby bypassing any need to cut the window or tape the pennant. And at least one maker actually screen printed the image of the team photo on to the felt, using half-tones--a printing technique actually pioneered by The Reproduction Co. back in the 1910s. See, e.g., this 1960 NL champs pennant....

I think it just came down to time: cutting the window looks better; but, takes longer.

If time was of the essence, say ... two teams tied for first place that year, requiring a three game play-in to settle the pennant, your time was extremely limited if your customer/concessionaire had any hopes of selling that pennant at the world series. So, Trench may have had to cut some corners when this situation occurred.

Great info, Kyle and Greg! I finished “restoring” :p my hammered Giants pennant. I’ll post a picture soon.

A few months ago, I posted about my attempt at restoring a very faded 1962 Giants team pennant. The dye job ran onto the graphics and I had to (I guess I didn't have to) repaint them. Decided to turn it into a fantasy 1958 pennant. If you had this in hand, it would be clear that it was painted by a true non-artist.
Thanks to football Rob for editing the Falstaff out of the bottom of the team picture.

Good stuff, Kyle … I’ll just add that Keezer dabbled in picture pennants a bit just for the Red Sox.

Ugh

I knew someone would fall for it. But to that extent? Shame... Sure wish we could still message other people on eBay (like in the good old days!)

What’s the “ugh”? Fake? Too much? You had one you sold for 100 bucks?

Just two problems with it....

Mitchell and Ness

We discussed it earlier in this thread (about 3 weeks or so ago). Severely aged to look old.... and outside of the spine, tassels, size and graphics all being wrong, it's a great piece!

Thanks for pointing it out guys. As a learning exercise, I tried to compare the ebay fake to past listings with big auction companies:

https://sports.ha.com/itm/baseball-c...a/707-19598.s#

https://lelands.com/bids/1918-boston-red-sox-pennant

I think I can spot the following discrepancies:

• The spin is a thick spin rather than the thin one that should be there
• There shouldn't be any "1918" on the pennant
• The lines on the 4 bases aren't right. They should have 2 lines diaganal down and 1 diaganal across not a "+".
• The crossed bats don't have the right detail (specifically where the bats cross each other)
• The lines in the floral pattern around the circles are missing and the floral pattern is the wrong shape.
• The white of the graphics is grainy rather than solid white
• It's hard to tell from the photos but the fabric looks too smooth on the fake one

I was going to mention the tassels are white instead of red but I'm pretty sure that the pennant manufacturers used multiple colors for tassels based on the materials they had available.

Have I missed anything?

By comparison are these listings legit?
https://www.ebay.com/itm/255378459443
https://www.ebay.com/itm/294201236387

Gorilla tape works great for re-attaching the photos in photo pennants and looks more authentic than masking tape. :)

It's a little hard to manipulate and align perfectly by yourself (when it sticks, it sticks) but that's why God invented wives. :cool:

On this page alone, I’ve twice asked a question or made a comment on something that has already been answered (1918 Red Sox) or commented on (1946 Cardinals). From now on, I’ll refresh the page to avoid looking like a dope. :rolleyes:

I was going to say "Queue The Price is Right "bust" music"...But then I noticed the Mitchell & Ness version doesn't notate "1918".

Even so...Not sure I'd spend $4500 on a pennant that had such a good repro the average collector wouldn't know the difference. Good luck recouping your investment.

Here are a couple originals and a couple Ness's including the one that just sold on ebay. None of the originals I've found have 1918 notated. Maybe someone added it to the Mitchell and Ness version to enhance "authenticity"?

But the give away that this is Ness, in addition to the spine/tassels previously pointed out is the markings on the four bases. Completely wrong on the Ness versions.

Rob

Even the "real deal" is not a very attractive pennant, when compared to the Reproduction Company stuff of the same era.

I don't know if you're kidding or not. As you say, Gorilla Tape is some very sticky stuff. I would have liked to have the 6" wide clear tape Greg spoke of but, even if I could find some, I wasn't about to buy a whole roll.

As it was, I found my image on the inter webs...saved the image and pasted it into a doc...it was printing kind of blueish until a light bulb went off and I printed it in straight b&w. I then wasted a lot of ink trying to size it perfectly. At one point, I needed to shrink it and I enlarged it. I finally got it right. I left a border and spray glued it (another tedious process) from the back. I'm done.

Great job Rob. That looks fantastic!

Wasn't kidding at all about the Gorilla tape. 99% of football picture pennants have the die cut hole so glue isn't really a good option. There's not enough picture border to get a good seal. The tape works great....but you need a couple extra hands.

Yes … I’ll add that what makes the white graphics look “grainy” as you say is the fact that it’s clearly not screenprint but the same felt texture as the pennant itself. A clear indicator of a modern production, Collegiate pennants notwithstanding.

That turned out great Rob. I'm also a fan of spray glue to re-affix photos to the pennant.

All this discussion about photo pennants inspired me to get my photo pennants out.

And here's 4 new arrivals. Am I right to think that the 1948 Indians pennant is less common in green?

Fantastic stuff, Gary! You have quite a collection.

One last question: on my Giants pennant, the spine was in ruins. Moths? If moths, why are the body and tassels unharmed? The tassels are obviously a different material and the body may be cloth. Is the spine felt more tasty?

These clearly had tasty spines. This was the blank (no pic) one that came from the national. I just glued the picture. Both yours and mine were likely unused and sat in a box for many years.

I have another Giants pennant that sadly got some attention from silverfish. They went right for the spine.

The spines were, by the early 1960s, the only part of a Trench pennant that was still 100% wool. Whatever that woven cloth was made of that was being used for their pennant bodies, didn't appeal to critters at all. But it sure faded easy; and it definitely frayed.

Even the 70/30 wool/rayon blends, which Collegiate of Ames and Chipenco had moved to by the 1950s for their pennant bodies, held up surprisingly well to critters. The Rayon must've been poison! :eek:

1971 Pittsburgh Pirates World Series Banner
 

Has anyone seen any 1971 Pittsburgh Pirates World Series banners simlar to 1971Pittsburgh Pirates National Champs banner that sold in 2018? Please share photos. Thank yoy.

Mini Pennant Protection
 

A bit off topic but still related to Pennants...

Are there toploaders for mini pennants?
Or do you guys cut the full size ones to size?

I have a few minis that I want to display with toploader and Im trying to figure out what to do...

I cut down larger pennant toploaders/sleeves for the mini pennants I have on display. Always feels like a bit if a waste, but it works.

So this recent sale on eBay is interesting. Has Keezer stamp on back. So it seems they were making these until at least 1972. These “late term” Keezers are identifiable by a simpler logo and the font/script. An Astros “astronaut” also sold which was pretty cool.

These late-term Keezers are identifiable from their earlier ones by the simpler logo and the same font/script.

Also interesting is that - to my knowledge - the trademarked Trench and ASCO Rangers pennants are thick, and very stiff, cardboard-like felt. It appears here that Keezer was still roughly the same quality as always.

(This led me to pull up Kyle’s incredible history of Keezer … very informative.)

That a great pennant....but I gotta say, the Keezer art department got a little lazy.

That's a cool pennant. The sellers description was *interesting*...saying the pennant was from the 50s. Anyone want to tell them the history of the Rangers? :)

"1918" Boston Red Sox Pennant
 

Greetings, All. I'm good friends with the collector who purchased the questionable Red Sox pennant on eBay last week. After reading the many posts on the pennant I called my friend to inform him of the discussion. Needless to say, he's now very concerned about the pennant. I told him I would post this to ask if any of you experts would be willing to speak with him. He understands that he would need to contact the eBay seller first and then contact eBay if he and the seller are unable to resolve the dispute. If you're willing to speak with him, please DM me and I will pass along your contact info. Thank you in advance, as he's a great guy who deserves our help.

Mike

I’m not an expert, but I think posts 8221 and 8222 pretty conclusively show your friend was duped into a Mitchell and Ness reproduction (tassels and bases). I think (hope) ebay will resolve this.

Mike, check your DM. Definitely a repro.

I would be willing to talk with him, but everything I would tell him is pretty much articulated already in my prior posts. Not much to add, really...

Spine: Too wide
Tassels: Too close together
Material: Wrong felt
Overall size: Too small- should be oversized
Graphics: Wrong, with the design of the Bases being the biggest tip-off
Dated 1918: No previous exemplars have a date added

My best advice would be to file for a return immediately. Don't let any more time pass, and use the informative posts here as your argument against it's authenticity. eBay normally supports the Buyer, so they can force the issue even if the seller pushes back. Start the return process today!