'72 Cin'ti Reds NL champs pennant by WGN
 

This just sold. Can't recall seeing a WGN professional baseball pennant this recent; or, with the words, "Western Div." on it.

Note that it is not licensed by MLB, as you might expect a post-1969 baseball pennant to be.

Looks to be the dreaded stiff “felt”?

I'm fascinated by the 1970s baseball and football pennants that should have an MLB or NFL logo, but don't. Like this Astros pennant I just got from Greg (Thanks, Greg). They often share a number of characteristics, including interesting colorful designs, really stiff felt, and especially brittle tassels. I think that Mark just got a Reds Johnny Bench pennant that probably shares these characteristics and there is a Willie Mays Mets pennants that has them too (among many others). In the football realm, the single bar pennants with stars seem to fit. As do many single bar Canteen corp pennants (they rarely or maybe never have an NFL logo?).

It would be interesting to know if these were all coming from the same maker that for some reason did not have to include the logos, or somebody (or somebodies) just making a lot of non-licensed pennants because there was no enforcement. And, when I say a lot, I mean a lot of different pennants. Many of these pennants are quite rare individually.

There are also several Redlegs Big Red Machine pennants out there....which is odd.

That Astros is the nicest of that series I've seen.

Agree. Beautiful Astros pennant, Marc...

Really unique for one of that era. My Bench/Reds pennant arrived a few days back, but I would not call the felt super stiff. It's definitely modern material, but has some pliability and "give" to it.

I'm sure you've all seen this type of "felt'. I would say it's the same material as this one, which is much more common...

https://www.ebay.com/itm/40503089913...Bk9SR7CqkeKIZA


As opposed to this one, which more closely resembles the blade of a guillotine...

https://www.ebay.com/itm/29649655380...Bk9SR7CqkeKIZA

Yeah, these ones I'm talking about are not the razor sharp felt when it comes to the pennant. Sharp, but not that sharp. But the tassel material is often very brittle. Easily broken.

The Astros pennant came in a lot of four that the seller said was found together. It also gives some “provenance” to the weird Reds pennant and the sorriest depiction of Mr. Red. The Reds seems to resemble a Bengals Riverfront pennant if I’m not mistaken …

Here are some of the pennants I am talking about. Hats/helmets, stars, and autos. Perhaps I am seeing connections that are not really there. Correlation instead of causation. I feel like all of these should have an MLB/NFL logo, but don't. Most are, without doubt, from the 1970s. All of the others probably are as well.

Either these pennants were "bootlegs" or the newly enacted NFL Trademark infringement rules were not as strictly enforced back then.

I would bet it's a combination of the two.