Hey, pennant guys

[thetahat]

Originally Posted by bocca001

Someone posted this maroon 49ers miner pennant on facebook a few months ago and I've been hunting it down ever since. It arrived today, from Canada. Glad to add it to the group. It's the first maroon version I have ever seen.

Marc, take a close look at the rear stitching on the second one from the bottom in your pic. Am I right that this is different than the others, almost like a double stitch?

That pennant and two of mine are like that, they also have graphics that are less sharp. You can even see it in the letters. I would think knock-off … except that one guy sold off a bunch of 3/4 size pennants that were similar and he bought them all in an old Trench box. More mysteries.

On another note, when I first used eBay there were a TON of mint 3/4 Trench football from the mid 1960s. Like there was a huge find somewhere. Now you never see them.

[bocca001]

Hey Greg- that's a nice assortment, and I never noticed the different graphics related to the mountain. I will say that some seem much nicer (amount of color, number of different colors) than others.

It looks like your bottom copy is also maroon. Nice. I still need to pick up a red one with white letters. I've seen a number of those over the years and always tell myself that I'll get one later. But now they seem less common.

The pennant you asked about (with the gray spine) does have something like double stitching on the back.

I have one 3/4 size, and it has that mostly yellow tint (see attached).

I've also seen the yellow tint on green felt. Can't say that I particularly like the color combination, but I'd probably buy it if I saw it

[thetahat]

Originally Posted by bocca001

Hey Greg- that's a nice assortment, and I never noticed the different graphics related to the mountain. I will say that some seem much nicer (amount of color, number of different colors) than others.

It looks like your bottom copy is also maroon. Nice. I still need to pick up a red one with white letters. I've seen a number of those over the years and always tell myself that I'll get one later. But now they seem less common.

The pennant you asked about (with the gray spine) does have something like double stitching on the back.

I have one 3/4 size, and it has that mostly yellow tint (see attached).

I've also seen the yellow tint on green felt. Can't say that I particularly like the color combination, but I'd probably buy it if I saw it

Mine are all different shades of red. Good movie title … 5 Shades of Red. Rated G.

The bottom is just slightly deeper, like crimson.

[ooo-ribay]

Question for Kyle:

With all the subtle variations we’ve been seeing, how often do you think the pennant makers would have had to “change out” their screens? I think Trench made thousands of the left handed batter and bridge for the Giants. I wonder how many they could get out of one screen…

[Domer05]

Originally Posted by ooo-ribay

Question for Kyle:

With all the subtle variations we’ve been seeing, how often do you think the pennant makers would have had to “change out” their screens? I think Trench made thousands of the left handed batter and bridge for the Giants. I wonder how many they could get out of one screen…

Good question. Once you burn your screen (stencil), if made properly, it could last several thousand runs. They're quite durable.

If the pennant was polychromatic, it might actually be made with up to four screens, depending on how many colors it featured. (One screen per color.)

I suspect for each pennant they burned a couple of screens, just in case the primary screen became damaged, e.g., torn mesh. If they were trying to screen a lot of pennants really quickly, like an NL/AL champs pennant for sale at a world series, you might have multiple presses printing the same pennant, side by side.

Here's what a well used screen looked like after a few thousand runs at Chicago Pennant Co....

[bocca001]

If they needed a new screen because the old wore out, would they copy it somehow? In a way that might “lessen” the quality of the original graphics? Or would they start from new?

[Domer05]

Originally Posted by bocca001

If they needed a new screen because the old wore out, would they copy it somehow? In a way that might “lessen” the quality of the original graphics? Or would they start from new?

I think if that company owned the original artwork, and they needed to burn another screen, they would remake it using the original artwork--which was likely saved in a file somewhere for just such a purpose. Therefore, I'd expect the successive screens to match the quality of the first.

But, if you were gonna burn a screen by ripping off someone else's artwork, which certainly happened in the pennant biz, then perhaps your knock-off stencil would lose some detail during the translation process? Additionally, if the the resulting pennant were made on a screen with a different mesh count than those made from the original, that would certainly result in a slightly different looking pennant.

Sometimes you might change your screen to a lower mesh count to improve the opacity of your print. Other times you might go with a screen with a higher mesh count to enhance the detail of your print. There are sooooo many variables when making a pennant.

It's all trial and error.... I'm certain some makers made adjustments midway through a production run resulting in very minor variations.

Gives us something to talk about, that's for sure!

[ooo-ribay]

Originally Posted by Domer05

Good question. Once you burn your screen (stencil), if made properly, it could last several thousand runs. They're quite durable.

If the pennant was polychromatic, it might actually be made with up to four screens, depending on how many colors it featured. (One screen per color.)

I suspect for each pennant they burned a couple of screens, just in case the primary screen became damaged, e.g., torn mesh. If they were trying to screen a lot of pennants really quickly, like an NL/AL champs pennant for sale at a world series, you might have multiple presses printing the same pennant, side by side.

Here's what a well used screen looked like after a few thousand runs at Chicago Pennant Co....

Good info, as always.

We did some silk screening in HS (I think) shop class. I seem to remember using an X-acto knife to cut the stencil. What do you mean by “burning” a screen?

The Seattle screen is cool….do you own it?

[ooo-ribay]

I think this is only the second purple Giants pennant I own.

[Domer05]

Originally Posted by ooo-ribay

Good info, as always.

We did some silk screening in HS (I think) shop class. I seem to remember using an X-acto knife to cut the stencil. What do you mean by “burning” a screen?

The Seattle screen is cool….do you own it?

The screens were "burned" because the process involved exposing the screen to a UV light source before performing a "wash out" resulting in the stencil you saw above.

That green substance you see, called "emulsion," is photo sensitive. It's dry/hardened now; but, when it was first developed, the artwork/graphics would have been transferred to transparent paper; then placed atop the dried emulsion inside a dark room. After exposing it to a UV light source for a few minutes, the exposed parts of the emulsion would harden and become waterproof. The unexposed areas (covered by the artwork/graphics) would remain, however, water soluble. When hit with a blast of water, this area of the screen would blow out, creating holes for paint to pass through.

That's how these stencils were made....