Hey, pennant guys

[thetahat]

Originally Posted by Fballguy

Just curious...Does anyone know what the oldest baseball pennant known to exist is? Anyone here have it?

If the question is: what is the oldest *series* of pennants ... maybe it’s these. My rudimentary research puts the creation of silk screening around 1911-13. These pennants have sewn on letters, and reinforced edges. Most unique is the leather batter graphic. I have seen four teams: Cubs, White Sox, Red Sox, and Tigers. The Tigers is the best of the lot because it has a leather tiger head instead of the batter. I think Mark has it? Also I’ve seen the Cubs pennant with opposite colors as the one pictured. ... I have the Cubs and Sox, strangely the Sox is a little smaller yet still oversized. Couldn’t have been trimmed because of the way the edges were made.

Also I can think of those “B.B.C.” pennants as one of the oldest series.

[Fballguy]

Interesting read about the Knickerbockers pennant. Is this it?

Knickerbocker Pennant.jpg

[perezfan]

That's it... Boy, you guys are good!!

[Fballguy]

Originally Posted by perezfan

That's it... Boy, you guys are good!!

I don't know man...I'd need some photo provenance to kick it up a little. It's not much to look at.

[perezfan]

Pretty sure the one pictured is the reproduced version.

Obviously it's more about the age, history, story, importance and rarity than the aesthetics. I'd probably clear a spot on the wall for it.

[Fballguy]

It's funny. The question was asked about the origin of the term "Pennant race" and the explanation was that the pennant was the traditional sign of a war ship and to capture a pennant would mean you were the victor. The first thing I thought of when I saw the Knickerbocker pennant was that it looked like a nautical flag.

[thetahat]

Big props to Domer and his research. The one “set” that I don’t think gets enough appreciation is the 1969 cloth set with the unique MLB trademark. Reading through his blog I see that these are ASCO. The little ASCO Mark is missing on the cloth set but in a few years to follow these were made in felt and even the awful stiff material with the mark. I’m trying to complete the cloth set, in this pic are some of them, many but not all are cloth, there’s a Brewers pennant in there, and a Trench Pilots, and yeah that’s an Oscar Gamble poster because he was super cool.