Speaking of weird screening textures ... came across this while continuing my inventory. There was apparently a brief period - perhaps 1960-61 - when the print had a velvet-like feel to it. I can date these by the picture pennants of the era, I know Phillies, Pirates, and Orioles all have it. Also this simple Phillies pennant below. Additionally, the 3D pennants have it. For whatever reason, it didn’t last long.

Oh ... and those are FANTASTIC Giants pennants ... truly works of art!

sold for $211, and was wondering if anyone knew anything about it. No picture of the back nor of the tip. I assumed it was something more modern, but then saw the price it sold for. I can''t tell if it is raised felt or screen printed from the picture. I'm always trying to learn about these things. The seller didn't use the word "vintage" to describe it, but did refer to themselves as specialists in vintage items 5 times in their description.

Attachment 397934

https://www.ebay.com/itm/1955-BROOKL...orig_cvip=true

thanks,
Rick

I haven't seen that particular one, but I'm 99.9% sure it's modern.

I wonder if that "velvet-like" feel would be known as "flocking"? Flocking is applying very short fibers to adhesive. I have a similar pennant without the velvet feel. I always assumed mine was 1970s and should have been licensed but was not.

P.S. this is not a pennant you see very often. I can't remember the last one I saw...

Nice pennant, Rob. I've never seen that one in my 5+ years of Giants pennant collecting. I know that design is more common for some teams and rare for others. The Oakland A's version sold on ebay earlier this year for decent money, and I think I recall seeing an Oakland A's version that was specifically for Vida Blue.

Obvious reproduction/fake....

For some reason, this one gets pawned off as vintage more often than any other Mitchell & Ness Reproduction. It is new and does not even resemble a vintage pennant. I have had to call respected Auction Houses on 3 separate occasions, about this particular pennant alone. They've all eventually taken it down, but not without a struggle.

The consignor is either just a stubborn fool who can't tell the difference, or one of the most tenacious con men in the hobby.

Oakland hat pennant
 

Here is the Oakland hat pennant. If anyone has the Giants or A's and would part with it, let me know.

What other teams have this design?

Click on link below, and pay special attention to the provided description....

https://www.worthpoint.com/worthoped...orld-479760996

Thanks Guys. I hadn't run across it before. I wonder if the bidders knew what they were bidding on?

Rick

If a pennant's graphics exhibit a raised velvet-like feel, then yes this is what they marketed as a flocked pennant. The process was used by a small handful of manufacturers beginning in the 1940s. Two companies in particular made it their signature design element: Collegiate Mfg. Co. and Chicago Pennant Co.

Collegiate of Ames branded pennants made using their flocking process as "Chromtone" pennants and marketed their pennants under this snazzy name. Chipenco followed suit; except they dubbed their flocking method "A Silvet Process." Despite the two names, they made their pennants the same way. Essentially, you screen on a base layer in white that's sticky. Then you dump a bunch of white "flock," i.e., ground felt dust, atop the pennant. The flock is then cured to the pennant via a heat treatment. The excess flock is removed. Finally, the secondary colors are applied via block-out stencils to the design.

The main advantage to flocking is that the graphics will never crack like they will on a screen printed pennant, using screen printer's paints.

Today, Collegiate Pacific still utilizes this premium production method on all of their felt products.

Cannot speak for all of them... but would definitely say the winning bidder really got flocked.

:D

Timely posts...I messaged a guy this morning about this pennant, which he just listed with a tidy asking price of $325 or best offer. He declares it original and having "hung in his father's office for as long as he remembers". I included these two pictures with my message, but as of yet, no change to the listing. I'd say the holograms date this to the early 90s at the oldest. The $35 asking price maybe early 2000s?

lol

Sweet Giants pennant Rob. I'm sucker for anything with stars.

Rob

I especially love the “minor moth hole damage”. Nice touch.

I think I was embarrassed to show my $190 lesson that red doesn't like bleach. I completely ruined that pennant. What you see is my "restoration" with red sharpie. :p

I found another one ($180). My wife thought I was crazy to try bleach again. To be honest, I was a bit nervous. I protected the red and did the edges. Mission accomplished! I now have a $370 pennant!

Nice Job Rob. Looks fantastic. Do you still have the first one?

I’m giving it to a buddy.

Looks really good, Rob. Glad it worked out.

How did you protect the red? Did you tape something over it? Of just try to avoid getting the bleach on that area?

Took a sheet protector and used painter’s tape. I pretty much stopped when it was “good enough!”

LOL. I bought this exact pennant among a few in the late 90s at the Mitchell and Ness retail store in Philadelphia. (Before I got into vintage pennants.)

Great post Domer ... though I’ll add my 3D Giants and Yankees have light cracking in spots.

Never saw Giants before, very nice! Here are Expos and Phillies ...

Any chance these flocked pennants from the 1970s are in fact Mitchell and Ness reproductions from the 2000s?

Other than M&N's pennants, all of which were reproductions, the only other MLB pennants I can think of made with flocked graphics were the four 3-D pennants made by Collegiate of Ames in the 1950s for the Yankees, Dodgers, Giants, and Red Sox.

I just find it odd that this manufacturer would make a flocked version for one or two teams; then screen print the others the conventional way for the remaining teams.

Additionally ... I don't recall the Dodger version of this style--which I recall being screen printed--featuring tassels. Do the tassels on the above Expos and Phillies pennants not resemble the M&N tassels we discussed last week, i.e., placed closer to the center?

These Expos and Phillies pennants are not Mitchell and Ness, the material is a cheaper paper-like felt. Genuine from early-mid 70s. The printing is standard of the time.

I can definitely attest to the 1960-61 Trench pennants as having flocked graphics. I’ll see if I can take a close up.

This is my 1960 Phillies picture pennant.

Ask, and ye shall receive...

https://memorylaneinc.com/site/bids/...e?itemid=53212


Scroll left-to-right underneath the picture, to see them all (as well as the newspaper ad from 1913). Solid evidence that Randall's Detroit Pennant is indeed the real deal!

Wow, I had not realized that these pennants were all sewn letter--not screen printed. Historically, most promotional pennants were of lower quality since they were basically given away, i.e., no tassels, no spines, smaller sizes. As the ad claims, these really were $0.75 pennants for the day--for only $0.15.

I'm kind of surprised nobody bid for the lot. The auction house did a great job of researching this series and establishing their provenance as legitimate baseball pennants from 1913.

It will get plenty of bids... auction has not yet opened (it’s still in preview phase)

The auction starts tomorrow...

Oops, sorry I should refresh my screen before responding to posts...

Thanks to Fballguy for making this rare Astros pennant available to me.

I was also inspired by Greg to try using google photos to organize pics of my collection. Here is what I was able to do for Houston baseball (hope the link works). I'll try to get to other stuff (e.g., SF Giants) soon.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/YVosseANFrmHdHPh9

Great Google gallery, Marc!

I notice:

A sure bleach candidate.
The odd LH batter between the pistols.
An autograph?

Back on the hunt for photos showing pennants, and the pennant guide listed the pennant shown in this photo as an LA 1960's. But this photo is from 1956 when the Brooklyn Dodgers played some of their games at Roosevelt Park, the year after finally winning the World Series. Or am I missing something? Are there different versions of a similar pennant?
Attachment 398801
Attachment 399015

Given all of the issues with bleaching red graphics, I just wasn't sure about bleaching that one with Orange. Every copy of that pennant I have ever seen has been pretty dingy. I may try picking up a second copy at some point and bleaching one. It's an uncommon pennant, but not super rare.

And, yes, the blue Colts does have autographs, from two relief pitchers. I'm usually not a fan of autographs on vintage pennants, but there was something I liked about that one. It reminded me of my kids getting autographs at games and being excited with any autographs, even the random relief pitchers (who are usually the only players you can get to sign during warmups these days). It was at a local antique store and I figured that I would help to keep it in the Houston area.

I totally understand your apprehension, but I might tape off everything above the lower edge and go at it with a very mild solution. I used to use straight bleach :eek: but I used about a 30% solution on the 1962 pennant and still got amazing results. Did you get your restorer stuff from Amazon?

Marc great pics! Glad it worked out. Cool Keezer pennants, i.e. the two red ones, one Colts and the Astros-naut pennant. Interesting that I have the latter Astros pennant with ‘Houston’ in the font used on your Colts pennant.

Greg

Greg- I see that now. Your red Astros and my red Astros have a different font.

Rob- I did end up getting some "Retro Clean" detergent from Amazon, and used it to try to clean up the Canteen Corp Oilers pennant below. It wasn't an expensive pennant and I figured that I was experimenting. I was most interested in getting off the brownish spots that looked like foxing to me. I used a small spoon to try to get the detergent/water mix on the felt, but not the paint. I ended up getting a drip on the helmet, which turned into a mess. The helmet and football are painted off-white. The detergent took the off-whie away and left just white. So, I tried to go down to the white level on the entire helmet, with mixed results. I'm ok with the results given that I knew I would probably mess it somehow. I was happy with the ability of the retro clean to significantly reduce the brown spots (on a color pennant) with just 5 or so minutes of soaking before a water rinse. I think the best solution is to try to wait for a clean pennant to become available. But some of these thin, lighter-color fabric pennants always seem yellowed, browned, and dirty.

Don't think I've ever seen a fabric Canteen Corp. pennant. I believe mine are all stiff. What did the cleaner do to the red paint? Anything?

Yeah, Marc, we need you to spray the whole thing with Retro-Clean and report back with results. :D

Seriously, the way it did not ruin the blue/gray felt makes me think it might be the perfect stuff for an old, red, heavily stained NY Giants pennant I own.

If you use this stuff, you probably need to cover/avoid any paint (or at least test the paint for color fastness by rubbing a small area of the paint with a Q-tip soaked in the detergent). Like I said, it took off the offwhite paint coat from the Oilers helmet on contact (just one drip). I think that coat had mostly yellow in it. And, when I soaked the fabric close enough to get near the red, the red started to bleed.

This pennant seemed to be especially prone to bleeding paint. I dipped a Q-tip with water and rubbed it on the red and the red started to come off.

But, like I said, I was impressed with how well it got out the brown, foxing, rusty spots and how quickly it did it. I think I had the detergent mix on it for 5 minutes at most (I spooned it on to the felt areas to try to avoid paint). It also brightened up the blue fabric. The hard part is cleaning all of blue fabric that is between the graphics/letters.

Giants, 49ers, Oilers
 

Once I set up an area to take pictures, I decided to take some pictures. So, here are:

SF Giants:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/3asA1U9ieVAa8fqYA

SF 49ers:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/EJMz8fH2goMc7afWA

Houston Oilers:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/ebrG4CcAG2xoCM54A

Great stuff, Marc! Interesting that the Niners basically used two colors, while the Giants are all over the color spectrum.

Finished inventory of a few more teams, came across this ... didn’t we earlier discuss Cubs and Giants pennants with the same cookie-cutter ballpark graphic?

This has to be a knock-off company ... the graphics/style are similar to Trench of the time period ... and maybe copying the stadium graphic would be too close to copyright infringement. Who knows ...

Here is the Giants with the same stadium. Kyle suggested that it may be Busch stadium.

In addition to grouping pics by teams my eventual goal is to group by style/maker, with the help of Mr. Domer’s excellent research. Stadium pennants, scroll pennants, etc. I think even a collaboration could be in order? Book?

Anyway, here’s what I have in Keezer pennants. I suspect that I have a couple others .... eventually I’ll post them and see what y’all think. Keezers have a fairly distinct style (double stitched, mostly heavy felt but some cloth, thick tassels, one color print), many are stamped on the back but not all

https://photos.app.goo.gl/CWTmDnbHaHL2XPqDA

I don’t see any photos. :confused:

If I already had 100 Giants pictures, how long would it take to make a Google album?

UGH I will fix it … okay now it's fixed. I have some difficulty going from phone to laptop, for some reason …

There are a few teams I am missing, and of course many teams have multiple versions. Not really anxious to "complete the set" although I'd like to find the Browns. I have a mini Keezer Browns but not fullsize.

Rob ... really easy. All you need is a gmail account. Probably 5-10 minutes to add the pics

Rob- I just downloaded the googlephotos app to do mine. Using it was easy. Create an album and then select the photos you want to go into it from those that are already on your computer/phone. If you already have the pictures, it should go pretty quickly. You can then send a link to the album to anyone (I sent it to myself and then pasted the link).

Interesting theory. That makes sense, actually. Whether they were trying to avoid a lawsuit, or just being lazy, it's clear whoever made this series phoned in the artwork.

Frankly, how they could label that stadium as "Wrigley Field" of all places is a crime against humanity.

The text on this Mets pennant resembles the text layout that ASCO used in the 1970s. Is the spine exactly 1" wide on these, I wonder? If so, it likely is by ASCO ... in which case, nobody should be surprised that they phoned in a pennant design :p

Is my first picture not a Keezer? It's not stamped but I thought someone had attributed it to Keezer. The second is Marc's "seen one and only once" pennant. Gotta be a Keezer.

Both are definitely Keezer. The second one is from their latest series.

And the second one has the Keezer stamp.

Of the Keezers I have in my album, about half have the stamp. I have a Senators with stamp and Nationals without. Both pennants are identical except for name.

Damn, I want that “second Keezer”! :D

Hey ooo-ribay. Did you say that you have a red one of these? If so, can you post a pic?

Picked up this post card because of the pennant theme. "Joe Kosyan's Pennant Buffet" in Quincy, Illinois. Sounds like our kind of place. 1920s give or take. All barstools have been removed so maybe during Prohibition. Also see Pro-Women's Voting pennants too which would place it around the 20s. I spot an early White Sox pennant around the upper middle of the postcard. Anyone have that one? :) Hard to make out any others.

Kyle...You ever stumble across this place during your research?

Edit...This shot is from the 1910's as I found one on Google dated April 7, 1916.

Awesome post card, and yes, I actually came across the same post card in a book dedicated to screen printing a while back.

It's an especially interesting piece because the photo is colorized. Not sure exactly how they did that back in the 1910s, but I think the photographer had to add the colors post-development of the original B/W exposure, by hand? If so ... makes you wonder how accurate the colors depicted are to the real thing.

And, although my wife generally isn't a big fan of buffets, I would totally drag my family there.

On a high res image of the same post card, you'll note a framed pennant above the center of the bar. It was apparently custom-made, for the proprietor, and reads "Jos. Kosyan / Pennant Buffet" next to a screen printed image of Mr. Kosyan himself. Beneath it, above the cash register, there's a very oversized, two-piece pennant with a four letter monogram (JKPB) next to the words "PENNANT BUFFET." Gotta love Mr. Kosyan's style, eh?

I think that's mine. :D

OK...I did the Google photos album. I was trying to import them by "series," but that seemed to not always work. Is there a way to re-arrange? I was thinking I would have 97 photos but I think I only got 89 or so. The one post-1980s pennant I included is a misspelled one. I probably have another 100 1980-2000 pennants.

DELETE FIRST GOOGLE PHOTO ATTEMPT.

Never mind...I figured out re-group. Stand by!

This is much better. :D

DELETE SECOND ATTEMPT.

Maybe I gotta do this?

DELETE THIRD ATTEMPT.

Maybe again?

DELETE FOURTH ATTEMPT.

Found five I missed. This time I'm done.

Really. :p

https://photos.app.goo.gl/VTWwsCGCUcnhRKy28

Great stuff Rob!!!! Thanks for posting!

Thanks for posting those, Rob. Here is one from your collection that I hadn't seen before. Nothing fancy, but clearly hard to find.

Google photos is actually pretty slick if you have your sh*t together! :p

Ok, here are my last two sets of photos. Pandemic project complete. I can see how this would take longer for those of you who collect many teams.

San Jose Minor League Baseball, with some other California League teams:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/TswGpyFDAceNYpBJ7

Santa Clara University football etc:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/PKq3vUDmzJj1HrQg7

New York Giants:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/5w4MyAqWtyAqb8JU7

You, no doubt, have the biggest Santa Clara pennant collection in existence! :p

Very nice! Love the San Jose pennants especially. Back in ‘09 my college team (I was asst coach, not player) opened the season at SJSU, we played a DH with the first game on campus and then walked over to the minor league ballpark for the nightcap. Cool old field!

Thanks, guys. I've been collecting Santa Clara pennants for a long time. It's rare to see an old one come up these days. I did get a great one from Kyle a few months ago.

Greg- about San Jose, it's cool that you got to coach a game at that stadium. You should track down the Sports Illustrated story about the "Bad News Bees", describing the teams from the mid 1980s made up of former MLB players with drug problems (e.g., Steve Howe). I try to catch an SJ Giants game there every summer. The Santa Clara Padres also played games there during their one season of existence. It was a strange team with colors of red, green, and white to hopefully help them catch on with Italian, Portuguese, and Latino fans in the area (i.e., flag colors). It didn't work. But MLB manager Joe Maddon played on that team.

Rob- what's up with this NY Giants pennant below? I don't recall ever seeing it before and it seems unlike most other baseball pennants. I like it.

Got it on eBay, years ago. It came from Venezuela. The guy had like 10 teams. Prices realized ranged from $10 to $100+.

I will look it up! In fact I think Ken Reitz played for that Bees team, if memory serves me.

I mis-read your previous post, Marc. Here's the red version, but I don't own it.

Thanks for posting that, Rob. This version (red or blue) with both the Yankees and Giants seems to up less often than the Giants versions (orange or black). I wonder if they are all just housed in Yankees collections?

I simply think that very few of that pennant were ever made (as opposed to being stashed away in Yankee collections). It was probably a very short production run to be sold only at the '62 World Series. You never see them come to auction or eBay, and it's been that way for the last 30 years.

Much like Rob's 1954 WS Pennant, it's just a super scarce variation. BTW, did you guys see what the '54 recently sold for in LOTG? :eek:

See link below....

http://loveofthegameauctions.com/Rar...-LOT20768.aspx

My earliest pennants
 

Nice grouping from the teens. Quebec towns an Athletic Club perhaps, HS? And Winnipeg.

Cleveland Indians. How many ‘54 pennants are there? I think it’s gotta be 7 or 8 - I don’t have them all - and mostly from the same company!

https://photos.app.goo.gl/BaQeZzJM7pdZ4suLA