Early Detroit Tigers pennant help

[sayheykid54]

I own what I hope is an early Detroit Tigers pennant. The pennant is has a black base color with orange stitched letters.

I did some research in my Egner Pennant price guide II but couldn't find it. I noticed a very similar one on page 106 from the 1910's. It has the EXACT same font for "Detroit" but is missing the Tiger to the left.

On the back it it has a tag "Detroit Free Press". Was the pennant issued by the Detroit Free Press as a Detroit Tigers pennant for the games?

[Duluth Eskimo]

I was going to say it would be a stretch to call it a Tigers pennant, but with the Detroit Free Press you may have hope. The colors match, but it is very common for old city pennants to have the team colors. Not usually black and orange though. Your only real hope is to find someone who possibly has a photo showing this pennant at a game, but even with that I would say the value is not substantial. Maybe $100-200. The big prices are reserved for those big Tiger graphics. Still a nice pennant and would display well with any early Tigers memorabilia. Jason

[mjkm90]

As an advanced Tigers/Cubs pennant collector living in Michigan I can tell you I see a lot of these in antique shops. Some are marked as Tigers pennants others not. I don't consider these Tigers pennants and don't have any examples in my collection. As a side note, few of them sell unless they are under $40.00.

My thinking on these and MANY other similar pennants from Chicago, Detroit, and other cities is this. When these pennants were made there was no league or team logo ownership. During this era $1.00 was a LOT of money. If you wanted to make money you put the team name or logo there so kids would ask their parents to buy one or you would appeal to the FAN. Think about it. These are likely simply city pennants. If your booth outside Tigers stadium had these boring generic pennants and Gus across the street had the roaring Tiger pennants you would go home with a cart full of felt and no money. People made things to SELL and these would not. Debate them all you like but wishing it so doesn't make it so.

Now excuse me while I try to jump off my soap box without breaking my ankles

[sayheykid54]

I'm not ruling it out as a Detroit Tigers pennant based on the quality and correct color scheme for the Tigers at that time. And again, the font and size of the letters is EXACT to one listed in the Egner's price guide from the 1910's minus the Tiger.

In my 25 years collecting Detroit Tigers memorabilia I've never seen another one.

Do you have a photo of another one? My extensive internet search turned up nothing.

[perezfan]

A question...

What would be the purpose of a "City Pennant" back in the day? Just to wave it at parades, festivals and such? Just wondering what this pennant was made for, if not sporting events... A souvenir for tourists? Did many people vacation to Detroit back in the teens

I think it has a pretty decent chance of being a Tigers Pennant, given the block letter style and orange/black color scheme. That's just my opinion. But as mentioned by the pundits above, there are two limiting factors...

1. Unless you have a photo or other documentation, it's very tough to prove.

2. Even if it was Baseball, the value would be severely limited by the lack of attractive/eye-catching graphics.

Most collectors would rather shell out for those great Roaring Tiger Heads or Baseball-related graphics. Still a very attractive piece... just hard to assign or justify a value.

[mjkm90]

Regardless of it's origin, your pennant is a beautiful piece and you should enjoy it. Please don't take my comments as an attack.

Detroit was a popular tourist destination in the early and glory days of the auto industry. These types of pennants may have been popular around holidays with Parades, during exhibitions, the annual Auto show (drew 10s of thousands of people each year), state fairs, conventions etc. and the Free Press would have had a presence at most if not ALL of those. The design suggests "Celebrate our City". Sure the colors are likely to suggest the Tigers. I just don't think these were likely sold at or around Tigers Stadium. The Free Press was THE newspaper of the day in Detroit and considering the popularity and success of the Tigers at that time I would think they would promote the team if that was the intent. Sure, the sports editor could have said "Hey Eddie, grab a box of those Detroit pennants we had made up for the Labor Day parade from the storage room and dump em at the Tigers game this weekend".

Tigers pennant manufacturers were some of the most creative and prolific of the early/mid 1900s and to compete in that market you would have to be creative.

Regarding the font. Here again there weren't a ton of fonts used back in the day and they used whatever was in the drawer. Old English was a popular font in the day and used on TONS of sport and non sport pennants, so if it were in that font you could make the same argument.



I don't have any pics from antique shops or flea markets, but I know Bob McCann had a couple of these for sale when he was still issuing sales sheets in the mail. I'll see if I can dig them up.

Hunts had one as part of a two pennant lot that sold for $80 in August of 2000. There isn't a pic on the web page, but here is the description: Lot of two vintage Detroit related pennants: Early “Detroit” three piece construction pennant c.1910, unclear as to origin or relation to sport: EX and a Detroit Tigers pennant c. 1940-50’s: VG-EX


This oversized pennant is circa 1910 and even then the Tigers Head was used.

[ooo-ribay]

Originally Posted by perezfan

A question...

What would be the purpose of a "City Pennant" back in the day? Just to wave it at parades, festivals and such? Just wondering what this pennant was made for, if not sporting events... A souvenir for tourists? Did many people vacation to Detroit back in the teens

.

Probably more vacationers in the 19 teens than in the 20 teens.