Is this a baseball pennant?

[slidekellyslide]

Sewn on letters and the right colors for the Orioles, but I am almost certain that this predates the Major League Orioles. Did the minor league Orioles have the same team colors?

[staindsox]

I'm guessing that pennant was produced in the past 20-30 years...you can tell by the lettering. It may be an Orioles pennant, but it certainly does not predate the Orioles, who have been sporting black and orange for over 100 years.

Chris

[slidekellyslide]

This pennant is older than 30 years old, and for the record I said I believed it was older than the MAJOR LEAGUE ORIOLES team which didn't become a ML team until 1954. I personally have never seen a sewn on letter pennant from the 1970s-present. I'm not even sure I've seen one from the 1960s.

[vintagesportscollector]

Hi Dan- I would guess this pennant is from the 1950s. I have seen many pennants from the 1950s or more recent with sewn on letters. They tend to be higher quality,higher cost, made for limited distribution - not like the mass produced screen printed pennants. Yours may have been home made or created for a specific purpose/venue. Just my opinion, but I don't believe it pre-dates the 50's. Nice pennant!!

-Joe

[slidekellyslide]

I suppose it could be 1950s, but I still suspect it's older than that because I found it with three other pennants that are certainly older than 1950s. Two of which come from the Baltimore area which leads me to think that they were purchased by someone on a vacation to the area. The Mt Vernon pennant has sewn on letters and a sewn on design. The Annapolis one is printed.

[vintagesportscollector]

What makes you think these two are older than the 1950s? I am certainly no pennant expert, but both of these look more recent than that based on the pictures. The Annapolis one looks like it could be 1970s. I wouldn't believe either of these are pre 1950....IMO .

In the 70s my family and I took a cross country trip for an entire month one Summer. I was big into banners/pennants and collected one from every city, monument, park and tourist trap we stopped at. These look just like many I picked up during the trip.

[slidekellyslide]

Well the Mt Vernon pennant is all sewn on letters and sewn on design. I doubt Mt Vernon was selling pennants of that high quality in the 1970s. The Naval academy may have, but the look and feel are definitely much the same as some of my baseball pennants of which I know the definite ages of. I'm still not sure I've seen pennants on real felt from the 1970s -present. They are on that stiff material. And you may not be able to tell from the photos, but they have lots of tiny moth holes in all of them. Joe, I know if you had these in your hands you would agree with me on the age. Here's the 4th pennant that came in the lot:

[vintagesportscollector]

Could be Dan. But many (if not most) penannts from the 1950s were created on soft felt and many also had sewn on lettering, so I don't think one could say for certain these 3 are older than the 1950s. Considering Baltimore became a MLB team in 1954 it would be most logical to assume 1950s. The style and construction are vintage 1950s. Could possibly be 30s or 40s vintage but that seems more like wishful thinking. But...like I said...not an expert...just my logical guess.

[mjkm90]

I don't think it's baseball related. Although, if I were an Oriole collector I would want it because the look. Almost all team pennants that don't have the name of the team will have a baseball graphic of some sort. Age on pennants is a bugger at times. It doesn't look pre 1950 to me however based on the look of the felt. Older pennants usually have puckering of the felt and fading even if kept out of the sun.

[flaco1801]

speaking of pennants how do you clean them? thanks, jeff