Hey, pennant guys

[Domer05]

Originally Posted by thetahat

I always thought these WGN pennants were Ad Flags .... I personally have my doubts about the 1950 ASG pennant, it doesn’t look like a match in style ... is there another reason to believe it is from that maker?

Greg: Your point is well taken. I too considered this to be by ADFLAG. And, of the several dozen pennants I used in my WGN post, this '50 ASG pennant was one I was on the fence over.

Here's my rationale for WGN:

(1) Colors. WGN seemed to embrace the transition to two-color and even polychrome graphics well in advance of ADFLAG. The Notre Dame pennants I showcased illustrate this transition, and I can confirm that this transition took place around 1950.

(2) Artwork. I covered this earlier in my AFLAG post, but this Comiskey Park graphic was used by both ADFLAG and WGN; however, when ADFLAG used it, they hid their "ADFLAG" name in the drawing, whereas WGN never did this. This Comiskey Park rendition lacks any such mark.

(3) Stars. WGN's art department was obsessed with stars! Here, we have baseball players silhouetted by a star, much like WGN's football design that Rob G. (and I) admire so much. I can't say that ADFLAG's art department shared this affinity for stars.

(4) Special event pennants. Finally, and this was the deal breaker for me, WGN was consistently big on special events, and this continued throughout the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. And an All-star game being played in their backyard would qualify as such an event. Nine years later, when the '59 World Series came to Chicago, WGN made pennants for both the hometown Sox and the visiting Dodgers. This trend continued for the Sugar, Orange, and Cotton Bowls; and, of course, the Super Bowl. ADFLAG, in contrast, ignored most of these special events. Sure, they did make NL and AL Champions pennants; but, they typically didn't reference the event itself by name, e.g., "1968 World Series" which suggests their league championship pennants were not made specifically for sale at the event.

Remember, WGN wasn't just a pennant maker, they were also a concessionaire. I'm fairly certain Mr. Newbould and his grand children were outside Comiskey selling this pennant in the summer of 1950. If they were willing to do that in South Bend, there's no reason to think they wouldn't try it at Comiskey. To my knowledge, ADFLAG was always a wholesaler, not a retailer.

Like I said, this wasn't an easy call for me. But, my opinion is this was WGN's work.

[Fballguy]

Boring weekend so I took your advice Mark. Guy let me have it for $30.

I wasn't sure about this one. It has the same red batter Rob made vanish.

[Hot Springs Bathers]

Rob would you explain the process for a beginner like me? I have a couple of early 70's that have browned from being stored in a cardboard box. Both have some red.

[Fballguy]

Originally Posted by Hot Springs Bathers

Rob would you explain the process for a beginner like me? I have a couple of early 70's that have browned from being stored in a cardboard box. Both have some red.

Hi Mike...It's on page 208. See posts #2073 and 2077.

Though I don't think early 70s are great candidates if they're made out of the stiffer material. I've experimented on a couple junk 70s pennants and the results were not good.

[Hot Springs Bathers]

Thanks Rob, these are of the recent stiffer variety so they probably would not be good candidates.

[perezfan]

Agree... if it’s post 1969, forget about it!

Rob-
Looks like a flawless result. We’re there any issues along the way? Any bleeding of the red? Obviously the Batter came out great, but curious if you had to do the hurried rinsing ritual to save it.

[ooo-ribay]

Stellar work, Rob!

Mark, in my experience, there’s no such thing as hurried rinsing....it either works or it’s a disaster.

[Fballguy]

No issues at all with this one.

I started by working from the back of the pennant and I tried to use as little bleach as possible to avoid problems.

Started with 90/10 mix just to see what would happen. Didn't have much effect on the bad spots but did whiten the background some.

Then I increased to about 70/30 and continued to work on the back. I let 30 minutes to an hour go by between each spraying so I could assess the progress. I probably sprayed it six or more times over the course of the day. This got the pennant pretty white, but several trouble spots remained.

By now I was fairly confident that the paint wasn't going to run so I turned the pennant over and hit the trouble spots directly...which included hitting the graphics. I tried to do that sparingly but it couldn't be avoided.

Finally, I had to strengthen the mixture to about 50/50 to get those sports on the tip to say uncle. I didn't have to spray the 50/50 mixture near the paint luckily.

Before I went to bed I sprayed the pennant with water to rinse off any excess bleach and I let it sit wet over night. It was nice and bright the next morning.

Sandwiched it between some towels to let dry for a few hours, then hit it with a warm iron.

Mission accomplished.