Flags of The United States

[cntrygrlgray]

Hello, my name is Crystal. I have this book, received it in a box from an auction. It is a blue canvas hard back book cover. Binder style, it has where you can add or remove pages. The cover has the following on it:

H.O. No. 89
Flags
The United States
and Other Countries
United States Navy Department
Hydrographic Office

It is in pretty good condition. Some slight, almost unnoticeable musty smell, slightly yellowed pages, no tears or rips, no missing pages. I am interested in selling this book, hopefully to a collector but would like to find out its worth so I can set a decent price. Can you tell me anything about it or direct me to a place that can? Thank you.

[NAVA1974]

Hello, my name is Crystal. I have this book... The cover has the following on it:

H.O. No. 89
Flags of The United States and Other Countries
United States Navy Department Hydrographic Office

Can you tell me anything about it or direct me to a place that can? Thank you.

Hello Crystal.

You have come to the right place.

You omitted one thing from the title. The date: 1938. This is an excellent pre-WWII flag reference book and every vexillologist should have a copy. You can usually find out what the antiquarian booksellers are listing it for by going to AbeBooks Official Site - New & Used Books, New & Used Textbooks, Rare & Out of Print Books and entering the title. In this case there are none for sale at the moment.

The book's retail value is anywhere from $35 to $50 or more, depending upon condition and who is looking for one at the time. If you put it up for auction on eBay I would recommend a starting price of $29.99

The 1938 edition was one in a long line of US Navy flag books. The series began as "Flags of Maritime Nations" in 1866. There were 5 more editions in the 1800's, another in 1914, your 1938 edition, and a volume that only illustrated shipping company "house" flags in 1961. Beginning in 1938 the Navy issued posters of Flags of the World but never published another flag book for public use. (A very rare document named RIG SAFEARM was issued to the service only in the 1970's.)

Good luck in selling your book.

Nick A
Columbia Maryland

[cntrygrlgray]

Thank you so much. That is way more info than I could find and it will really help.

[NAVA1974]

Thank you so much. That is way more info than I could find and it will really help.

You're welcome!

The reason you can't find this info online is because there are very few individuals (and even fewer libraries) that have a full collection of FOMN. The only published listing that I know of is in a 1965 Bibliography of books on flags of the world, and that book itself is rare.

I know of three complete collections of Flags of Maritime Nations encompassing the 1868 (not 1866 as I said earlier) to 1938: The Flag Research Center library in Winchester, Massachusetts, my personal library, and the library of a noted vexillologist in Australia (I assembled the collection for him - the cost of postage alone was daunting. )

Please let us know if you put it up on eBay or otherwise make it available for sale.

Nick A

[cntrygrlgray]

I would like to list it on eBay if nobody here is interested. Any ideas on a title or what to put in for the listing?

[NAVA1974]

I would like to list it on eBay if nobody here is interested. Any ideas on a title or what to put in for the listing?

Hello Crystal,
I saw that you listed the book already:
Flags of The United States and Other Countries US Navy | eBay

I would say your listing does a pretty good job of describing the book. If you can still add photos, I might suggest including pics of pages 28 and 48 as they show the flags of Nazi Germany and Republican Spain - of great interest to military historians, modelers, and vexillolgists.

Nick A