Yup.... I agree cloth is the right term for it.

Look very closely.... is it comprised of thousands of tiny threads compressed together?

Mike is there any chance that you could post a close up photo of the material. For those of us who haven't had that pennant, It'd be great to see what it's like.

Apologies on the delay

I think really the key feature here is that these "cloth" pennants feature a woven fabric, as seen in this close-up photo; whereas the traditional pennant features a felted fabric.

Felted fabrics aren't woven; rather, they're made by taking millions of wool or polyester fibers, rolling them flat under great pressure, then curing the flattened result with a heat or water treatment to bind everything in place.

That's why, if you examine an old felt pennant up close, its composition would look random--nothing like these woven ones.

That's also why, when you cut woven fabric, the threads along the leading edge quickly loosen (because the interlocking of the threads has been broken, which is what binds that type of material together), leading to frayed edges. :eek: That doesn't happen with felted fabric.

Cloth > Felt in my opinion

Love the look of a smooth, unfaded 1950s cloth pennant. Also harder to find without paint cracking.

Now the question is … when were the first cloth pennants made? The 1954 WS pennant made by the mystery NYC area company seems to be the oldest dated cloth pennant. I also have a 3/4 Browns Keezer in cloth …

Which 1954 WS pennant, featuring “my” team, are you referencing? :confused:

Here are two recent pickups. I'm generally mixed on autographed pennants, but like Vida Blue on the Giants. He was one of their best players when I first became a fan. The Bees pennant is from 1984, which I can tell because it is signed by a future Japanese HOFer (Kim Kudoh). I've posted about these Bees teams elsewhere, I think. In a nutshell, they were horrible, but they had a bunch of players who went on to play for the Seibu Lions, and they became a powerhouse in Japan. Kind of cool.

You had that pennant ^^^^ without an autograph, didn’t you?

I have a few versions of the Giants pennant. This happens to be the first with a white spine... but I really liked the Vida Blue addition (and thanks to Erik for making this one available to me).

As Rob and Erik already know, the pennant also came with this pennant-shaped menu, which clearly identifies the Giants as the rightful 1979 World Champions.

Really nice Giants pennant. That has to be a tough one to find. They finished 20 games under .500 and in 4th place so wishful thinking I guess.