PENNANT FACTORY
Homemade pennants inspired by designs of the past
The jobYup. Another Dodger pennant. Hey, when your team goes 32 years without a world series title ... you gotta make the most of things. (I may have to wait another 32 years before getting another chance like this!) In 1959 two pennant makers located in Chicago, Illinois made pennants commemorating the Los Angeles Dodgers' appearance in that year's World Series. One of these was manufactured by the WGN Flag Co., and I reproduced and documented it in a prior post. The other, was made by the Advertising Flag Co. (ADFLAG) and it looked like this: Not a bad pennant, right? Sure, it's simple: monochrome, no tassels; but, you have some interesting, original artwork that makes the pennant really come to life. The best part is that, mixed within the stadium scene depicted, the artist included the 25-man World Series roster from the '59 Dodgers team.
Good luck finding one of these world champion variants! It's an uber rare Dodgers pennant that's among the scarcest from the team's early days in Los Angeles. With that said ... I feel like ADFLAG could have done more. All they did was substitute the word "WORLD" for "NATIONAL LEAGUE"; and add an angled (and, in my opinion, undersized) "1959" to the left of the diamond. Upon further inspection, it looks like they simply took the stencil from variant #3--blocked out all but the year and the top edge of the box--then re-used that portion of the stencil for the world champs version. If you collect pennants you're likely aware of variant #1 of the NL champs pennant from 1959. But, did you know ADFLAG made another round of these, featuring the same artwork, in 1963? Indeed, they did.
As with the 1959 pennants, the 1963 series included several variants. One commemorated the Dodgers as NL champs; and two celebrated them as world champs. Of these latter two, one featured the year "1963" in the bottom left corner; and the other, of course, had no year depicted at all. Most likely, ADFLAG offered this year-less pennant to their customers to assuage concerns they may have had about getting stuck with unsold stock. This way, any unsold inventory could be resold if/when the Dodgers won another world series. (Turns out, they won another two years later....) Here's what the 1963 series looked like: Above: The three variants offered by ADFLAG to commemorate the '63 Dodgers. Wholesale customers likely purchased all three together; and they would have tried to sell the first two ahead of the last one, so it could be re-sold at a later date. So, between 1959 and 1963 ADFLAG offered no less than seven different types of pennants commemorating those two teams. Moreover, all but variant #1 from the 1959 series are extremely rare. So rare, in fact, I decided some version of them had to be reproduced. And then it hit me: why not re-make the 1963 version; and, adapt it for use as a contemporary pennant commemorating the 2020 World Champion Dodgers? After all, that's precisely what ADFLAG did between 1959 and 1963. Just update the names. The resultI made two versions of this pennant. For the classic reproduction, I chose the 1963-dated world champs variant (variant #2, above). Although I understand why pennant makers intentionally omitted years on championship pennants, as a collector: this really frustrates me. Variant #2 leaves no doubt what championship year this pennant commemorates: the large "1963" beside the artwork makes this perfectly clear.
Classic reproduction: 1963 WS Champs Pennant |
AuthorIn 2018 I started a separate website called Pennant Fever dedicated to 20th century felt novelty manufacturers. It focuses on these companies' history, products, etc. Eventually, my interest in these businesses inspired me to start making my own pennants. THIS site you're currently viewing, Pennant Factory, is where I'll showcase some of the felt projects I've taken on. Most are reproductions of real pennants once for sale to the public. I've done my best to re-create the originals as authentically as possible based upon surviving photos, known dimensions, etc. Others are my original work, intended to look like the styles of yesteryear. Some turned out better than others. See for yourself. Enjoy! -KRB Projects:
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