T O P I C R E V I E W |
kosmo | I have been collecting U.S. space program pennants for some time and thought cS members might enjoy seeing some of them.
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Ronpur | Awesome! |
Larry McGlynn | Great Collection. Pennants are a fun way to celebrate. |
Robert Pearlman | Tom, do you have some sense how complete your collection is? Are there pennants you know exist but you haven't been able to find? What would you say are the rarities among the collection? I have seen a couple of STS-1 pennants over the years. Do you also collect the shuttle examples? |
kosmo | Robert, I really don't know how complete my collection is, I do have some pennants that I have not shown. I can show those if members want. As far as rarity, the LM pennant as far as I can tell may be the rarest, it's the only one I have ever seen. Pennants in the first photo and the fourth photo are quite uncommon, as well as the small pennants in the third photo. Mercury program pennants are getting hard to find. I haven't started to collect shuttle pennants, focused on mostly the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo pennants. It seems as if there should be more Gemini pennants, I know of four, and I have two of them. Also surprised by the lack of more Apollo 8 pennants. It would be fun to have cS members post their pennants if not seen in the above photos. |
Robert Pearlman | I have seen the pennants in the second photo described as originating from Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. Is that correct? Do you know where the others came from? I also find it interesting that there are no (?) pennants for Alan Shepard's Mercury flight. |
kosmo | I hadn't heard of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus connection before. Most were sold at the cape, parades or homecomings. I'm surprised that there are no Alan Shepard pennants too! I have only seen Glenn and Cooper pennants. |
Liembo | What a unique and gorgeous collection! |
Joel Katzowitz | That's a very interesting collection, I was not aware that so many pennants were out there. I have a collection of pin back buttons which I understand were also distributed at parades and similar celebrations. I tried for a long time to track down a Grissom MR-4 button but read that due to the fact there was no parade to commemorate his flight, there were are no buttons produced. |
GACspaceguy | That is amazing as I would not have thought there were so many. It speaks of how the country was so spaceflight centric during that time. |
kosmo | I also have a U.S. space program pin-back button collection (see here). I have a feeling that most buttons and pennants didn't start showing up for the astronauts until after Glenn's flight and all three of the flown astronauts (Shepard, Grissom, Glenn) started to appear in parades together as "Men of the Year." There is a small Alan Shepard button from his flight.
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Gilbert | Very nice and interesting collection. |
kosmo | Just some new additions to the U.S. space program pennant collection. |
Paul J. Brennan | Very cool, a beautiful display of pennants! I didn't even know they existed for the space program, but it makes sense since pennants have been popular for other hobbies through the years. |
Gilbert | Very nice! I really like those pennants. |
LM1 | Wow! What a collection! Do you ever sell any of them? And if so, do you fold them in any way. I have sold pennants many times. The package is usually very long because of the dimensions of the pennant. I sometimes fold them if the buyer says it is OK. I cover the pennant with cardboard on front and back. |
Robert Pearlman | Tom (kosmo), you may have already seen, but at this year's San Diego Comic Con, Peanuts Worldwide partnered with Pintrill to offer lapel pins and an embroidered patch based on the Snoopy pennants you have pictured above. The pins and patch were exclusive to the con, but can now be found on eBay. |
kosmo | LM1, thank you. I typically only sell if I end up with multiples of a pennant, which doesn’t happen to often. I usually ask sellers to loosely roll the pennant and ship it in a box, this cuts down on size of package and keeps the paint on the pennant from cracking (folding will cause that). Robert, I have seen those, very nice and much smaller than the originals. Haven’t pulled the trigger on buying them yet, but probably will. |
kosmo | Just thought I would post some additions to my US space program pennants. Most notably the Wally Schirra, Oradell New Jersey pennant. This is the first time I have seen a Schirra pennant and only the third Mercury program astronaut pennant I have found, typically it’s Glenn and Cooper.
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KSCartist | I still have an Apollo 17 pennant that I purchased at KSC in December, 1972 the day before launch. |
Zoo Keeper | When I saw that Schirra pennant posted on eBay, this thread was immediately my first thought. Congratulations on picking these up for your collection. |
kosmo | Another early Mercury pennant of Gordon Cooper. |
MOL | I found this one in an antique mall in upstate New York. I am guessing it is from the early 1970s. |
Robert Pearlman | Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex now sells an Artemis pennant: |
kosmo | Nice Robert, and pennant looks old school. |