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!

“1918” Boston Red Sox Pennant
 

Thank you, Rob, Greg, and Mark. I’ve been exchanging emails with Greg and will be preparing the formal dispute on behalf of my friend. I did email the seller and stated our position, citing your specific posts in the thread. He replied last night and was cordial, saying that he read the posts, but he still believes the pennant is authentic and a possible “one of a kind” from 1918.

I will post updates re the status of the dispute, and thank you all again for your time, information, and support.

(Buffalo) Mike in San Diego

A few weeks ago, someone listed a bunch of cloth Trench football and baseball pennants on ebay that had clearly been in storage for many years. No duplicates, but many different teams. Only a few were rare in terms how often they come for sale, but I think they were rare in terms of quality. I ended up winning the Giants and 49ers. If you ever wondered what these looked like brand new (minus a need for some ironing), here you go.

^^^^ Beauties! 👍

This person is trying to save the extreme profit they made or the poor decision they made to buy this from someone else. The “1918” pennant in question has all the telltale signs of a repro that others have mentioned. I have personally owned and sold at least 4 different of these original pennants. Your 1918 repro has none of the definition of the originals. Look at the font and the thickness and detail of the “ribbon” around the circle of text. In the genuine pennants they have more detail and you can see some very small “lines” in the screen printing meant to make the edge appear to be waiving in the wind. The “1918” pennant is 100% fake and I’m sorry if the seller is left holding the bag. They should have done better research. Dispute the sale and contact your credit card company if they used one. It’s 100% fake.

Annin & Co. of NY
 

Back to this "one of a kind" 1918 Red Sox pennant....

I happen to know that the genuine version of this flag (sans "1918," that is) was manufactured by Annin & Co. of NY (a.k.a., A & Co. of NY). To my knowledge, it was the only professional baseball pennant ever made by the legendary pennant maker in the 20th century.

I know this because I own the 1923 edition of Annin's sales catalogue. It features a page identical to the one below....

Note that the Red Sox pennant illustrated appears exactly the same as the others previously identified on this thread as genuine.

It looks nothing like the M&N repro; and it looks nothing like this "1918" job some unscrupulous pennant maker tried to pass off as being 100+ years old. If the design had been updated between 1916 and 1918, you would expect Annin to showcase the more contemporary variant by 1923, when this catalogue was published.

Case closed: it's fake.

Lost in the mail for a month, this beautiful Yankees pennant finally arrived. I know it’s not a “mini”, so what do we call this size? I’m thinking that it’s probably a 1940’s or 1950’s era pennant.

Blizzard conditions here in Nebraska [emoji3063] When your stuck inside it’s fun to enjoy your hobby! Figured I’d send some pickups over the last handful of months.

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...af21b02b60.jpg
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...fa49b0950b.jpg
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...8a170a31bc.jpg
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...fc5d4a4aae.jpg
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...dd66231707.jpg

Very conclusive Kyle.

With regards this statement "it was the only professional baseball pennant ever made by the legendary pennant maker in the 20th century."

I recall that this baseball HOF pennant from 1939 was made by Annin too???

You're absolutely correct. Annin made that particular Cooperstown pennant--has this label on the reverse.

But other than that Sox pennant, I know of no other pennant by them for a specific MLB team.

Awesome pickups Erik! Some super rare ones.... congrats!