Help needed from the pennant experts here
 

I just won the last pennant of first Washington D.C. area team championship pennants. I needed the Bullets 1978 championship pennant and scored it on the bay minutes ago. It is dirty but I believe recoverable to be presentable better than it is now.

I need opinions on how to clean it and keep it shapely and that is where you come in. Please, any suggestions as to how to clean it are greatly appreciated. Without further ado, pictures are below, front and back.

Now I have to wait for it to get here.

Regards,

B. T.

There are some posts about this in the Hey, pennant guys thread

In my limited experience, there are 2 options.
1) Fill the bottom of a bath with warm water and add Oxiclean. Let it soak for 30 mins to an hour (paying close attention to ensure the printing doesn't start disolve). Gently rinse it in cold water and let dry.

2) Bleach: This needs a bit more care. Tape the pennant to a wall in your shower. Make sure to cover the spine so that the bleach can't get to it. Then put bleach in a spray bottle and spray the pennant. Let it sit for anywhere from 5 mins to 30 mins and then rinse thoroughly.

Both methods are not without risk. If it goes wrong, you can damage the colors on the pennant. It's probably worth trying it with an inexpensive pennant first.

Some consider bleaching to be the equivalent of trimming cards. Many others don't.

Others will probably be able to give more advice.

Thank you.

I am reading that post now and am up to page 15..

I’ll continue to scour that thread and thank you for your suggestions.

Hi Butch - I'm kind of the original "bleacher" in the pennant guys thread. :p

I would not use bleach on your pennant. Two reasons: red doesn't like bleach and bleach works great on the older, soft felt pennants but doesn't do much on pennants of your vintage.

I would try Oxyclean, with the caveat of watching it closely. Edit: just as bleach doesn’t seem to work well on newer pennants, Oxyclean doesn’t do much for older pennants.

The following pictures are examples of bleach on the 1962 pennant and Oxyclean on the newer one. A bunch more of my Oxycleane results are on page 111.

Wow when does right what an amazing transformation

Thanks Rob!

I have been devouring the main pennant thread and I bow to you in awe and respect. Your collection is beyond amazing. Thanks for the advise and I will give Oxyclean a go.

But not until after I buy a burner pennant and get good on that one first. I have been looking for this Bullets pennant for a long time and that will not be the first one I experiment on just to ‘see’ how it works.

I’ll post before and after picts in the main thread once I get a level of comfort first.

Much appreciate your reply to me.

Cheers,

Butch

I totally understand where you're "coming from." I have had no issues with Oxyclean (I actually used the generic brand) but none of my newer Giants pennants had red in them. If you do a burner pennant, find one with red. If not for the "red issue", I would say 100% just go for it. I think fballguy shows some Oxy results on pennants with red in the other thread.

Even with the red, I'm fairly sure you'll be fine.

Butch,
I just did one from 1981 Stanley Cup for my personal collection and soaked with Retro Clean in warm water for an extended time. Unless there’s rust stains from pinholes, the rest should come out just fine.

With the synthetic fabric you should have little to worry about with color bleed. I’m sure the oxyclean would work fine too, but this stuff is made for restoring with vintage fabric and fine clothing.

Awesome information. Making me feel more confident with each post here. Thank you so much for the retro clean info.