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.