Great post! I can only tell you, my first pennants given to me as a very young kid in the mid-late 70s ... were all bought at Veterans Stadium souvenir stands, and they are all marked “VET”. I still own 3-4 of them.

I am from Ohio but I got my “M” marked pennant at least 20 years after I left the Buckeye State.

Rob,
That’s a great pennant and a tougher variation of the 1936 Yankees that is normally seen.

PS: I sent you a PM.

Charles Shear
 

That's a beauty, Rob. I did some research on Charles Shear that I recently included as an update to my piece on Trench Mfg. Co.

Charles Shear came to the US as an immigrant boy. He started a business in New York City under his name that would grow into one of the nation's largest novelty operators. In particular, Shear's business focused on concessions; he sold novelty items at fairs, festivals, concerts, theaters, and of course, ballparks. In that sense, they were similar to Sportservice, another concessionaire that Trench made pennants for.

As with Sportservice, Shear didn't make his own pennants; rather, he just sold them. From the looks of things, he ran the concession operations at nearby ballparks, like Yankee Stadium and the Polo Grounds, throughout the 1930s. It's no coincidence that most of the pennants tagged with his name involve one of the three New York baseball teams; or, their World Series opponent. I suspect these pennants would have been sold directly at these events.

Back to your pennant. This '36/Yankees AL champions pennant is the earliest professional baseball pennant by Trench that I know of. Trench made similar ones like this into the 1940s and 50s for a variety of other baseball teams; however, most bear no maker's or concessionaire's marks at all (the Chas. Shear concessionaire's mark seems to disappear by the mid-1940s). Most of this series were 9" x 26" in length.

Additionally, this would have been a premium pennant in 1936. Just look at how many different colors the artwork features. Most other pennant makers were making one-color graphic designs. Yours has at least five!

Hey, pennant guys
 

When I read this post yesterday, it reminded me of a pennant I once owned with ‘Canteen Corp’ located on it. And as I went back to find a photo of it, I revisited a message football Rob sent me indicating your https://pennantfever.weebly.com blog referenced the company as a concessionaire.

I finally was able to spent some time today reading most of the pennant manufactures’ history. First, the content is amazing. The time, passion, and articulation is second to none. I learned so much about a hobby I really enjoy - it makes me appreciate it even more. And I think a few of my pennants are pictured. :) Specially, when I was reading about Trench, the lack of consistency using maker’s marks, mark variations, and how competitors often copied design, it was apparent to me why so many subtle differences exist. This was also emphasized in the ADFLAG ‘copycat’ section.

To my point, has anybody else noticed this slight variations on some football ‘number 12’ pennants? I used to own two NY Giants pennants, you’ll notice the forth and smallest players have different numbers (10 and 12). It also looks like in the Trench section of the blog, the ‘number 12’ pennant - Notre Dame example - the forth and smallest player may have number 35? Additionally, the ‘N’ on New York is seems slightly different on each. Finally, the left foot of the main player also appears to be slightly different on each pennant, too (you may have to zoom in on the first photo)

Any thoughts or theories about this? Do you think Trench made all these pennants (the two Giants pennants both have tassels) or would a copycat version slipped in? It’s interesting to me that the least visible player was the one altered. But maybe this was common practice? Sorry if this was discussed before.
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^^^^ I have no theories on the makers :( but I notice #12’s uniform wrinkles are also slightly different.

The Steelers and Packers all have the same variation to this style of pennant. Those two along with the Giants seem to be the most common teams in this style. They're the only teams I can think of with multiple versions of this pennant. Others...Cowboys, Cardinals, Vikings have just one. At least that I've seen. There are quite a few teams I've never seen in this style. Bears, Lions, Rams, Redskins, Colts, 49ers, etc.

Aw shucks, thanks Erik for the kind words. If the info from my site helps you appreciate pennants more than you already do, then that was precisely my intention.

Someone on this thread once commented that, "Quality control was not necessarily part of the manufacturing process," when these souvenirs were made 50+ years ago. And it's so true. Back then, the artwork was drawn by humans; the felt was cut by hand; and the screen printing process itself ensured a limited degree of variation from one job to the next. Some makers even sold the imperfect stuff for a discount.

Perhaps the biggest area for variation concerns secondary color applications. Most of these 1950s/60s pennants by Trench were screen printed with a white base layer; then air brushed with 3-4 more colors topping that base layer. If the air brusher swiped the gun too fast, or the gun was running low on a certain color, the coloring would come out different from the previous pennant.

I think that's probably why, on your NY Giants pennants, the shoes differ. Clearly the black paint either ran out on the applicator; or else they opted to skip this color in the interest of time, money, etc. I've definitely caught similar variations in other Trench pennants over the years that left me scratching my head.

Since we are talking about pennants with labels, here’s a Brooklyn pennant - not quite full-size but not 3/4 either ... 10-3/4” by 26-3/4” ... made by a company in Yonkers.

Norsid
 

I have never seen that Brooklyn Dodgers pennant. Ever. :eek:

I have seen Norsid labels before; but, never once on a Dodgers pennant. I mostly recall seeing their label on collegiate pennants from the 1940s, 50s and 60s.

Anyone else seen this label on MLB pennants before? I feel like I've seen that artwork before, too....