Question on 38 star medallion flag

[qbertman]

I was hoping to get a few thoughts from this board regarding a 38 star medallion flag. It's a very large flag with an interesting star pattern. One thing that seems a little strange to me is the fabric which appears to be cotton. It looks a little too new and perhaps to tight of a weave to from around the centennial. I was wondering if you guys could opine on this.

Pics can be found at the following link

Auctiva Image Hosting

Thanks,

Nicholas

[csaanv]

Hi Nicholas,
Hopefully, Our Nick, the master collector will comment on this but in the mean time I will give you my thoughts. Understanding of course I'm not able to examine it up close but just from the photo it looks legit to me. It seems to have the correct patina on the white stars and stripes and the length of the flag was not uncommon for that era in the 19th century. While government flags were mostly made of wool bunting, cotton/linen was used quite a bit in the commerical market. Linen did have a tighter weave than most cotton fabric. It looks like it is in an antique shop. How much do they want for it?
mm

38th star flag_w.jpg

[NAVA1974]

In my humble opinion, that is a period flag. It is a beautiful star pattern, but unusually long for a non-maritime flag. It very likely was home-made as major flagmakers did use wool bunting, and would not have made the mistake of resting the canton on a red stripe. I have a home made 38 of very similar fabric in my collection. (Don't have a photo to post but as I recall the star pattern was rather irregular.)

Nick A
Columbia Maryland