Bennington flag??

[bcowley]

Hi, I hope someone can help me.

I have an American flag with 13 stars, 11 in an arc above the number 72 and 1 in each corner above the 76. The flag has 13 stripes beginning and ending with a white stripe. The stripes are stitched together. The stars and number are "printed" on a blue background. The flag has two brass eyes on a white band (obviously for flying the flag!). It appears to be made of cotton but I can't really be 100% sure. The flag measures 3 feet x 5 feet.

I was told some years ago that this was a replica of the Bennington Flag.

I have just recently rediscovered this flag in my attic and would love to find out more about it. Is it worth anything??

many thanks in advance

Brian

[coasterville]

Ah, I take it you mean something like this:



Yes, that's the Bennington. Replicas of this flag are pretty commonly available. I could walk about half a mile to my local Annin dealer and pick up a stack of these. Of minor interest, I live in Cincinnati, OH, and we have a bridge across the Ohio river into Kentucky. At that bridge, Kentucky has for several years now, chosen to fly a Bennington along with their state flag on their side of the bridge, where Ohio flys a 50-star flag and their state flag on their end of the bridge.

Here is what Wikipedia has to say: Bennington flag - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You indicated yours has sewn stars and a printed design in the union/field of blue/canton. Can you tell what material the flag is made of. If it came from one of the major flag makers it might have an imprint on the white header down the hoist side. (You can just barely see the imprint towards the top of the flag pictured above.) That would tell you who made it, and possibly what it was made from. Other manufacturers might have attached a tag somewhere to the flag, usually to the header. But since these tags generally say "Remove before displaying" such tag may not be there. Depening on who made it, if it's old enough it might have come from a manufacturer that is no longer in business, or been acquired by another company. That might increase interest to a flag collector.

I have an Annin catalog here from two years ago, and on it the price for a new in box is around $38, but I think they use a fully sewn flag. For example, mine is from Annin's Bulldog line which is a cotton flag, an the design is sewn, see close up below:



Hope this helps, and if you decide you have an interest in collecting the rest of the historical replicas, I'm sure we can help point you in the right direction.

[csaanv]

I believe there was a run up on these flags for the Bicentennial in 1976 so there are still quite a few around. The Flag Guys in NY received a lot of these flags from some flag manufacturer and were selling the 3'x5' printed versions for less than $5.

[coasterville]

Yes, in fact when I show it to some peole they call it the bicentennial flag. Not surprised there was a large run on them at that time.