Jeff Bridgman Antique Flags
Jeff bridgman in the news
Rare Antique Flag

Folk Art for Young Collectors

By STEVEN KURUTZ, New York Times
Published: January 25, 2012

Jeff Bridgman, a Pennsylvania-based folk art dealer who brought to the show a circa 1915 carousel horse, said partnering with 1stdibs is a way to “introduce folk art to a younger audience,” one that has shifted “towards modernism and away from Americana” in recent years. The recession and popularity of midcentury, he added, has advantages for new folk art collectors looking for deals. “This isn’t the worst time in the world to buy,” Mr. Bridgman said.

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Rare Antique Flag

"Art In America" BBC Documetary Series:
A Visit with Jeff Bridgman


Be sure to watch the BBC's fantastic new documentary on the history of America and American art. Jeff Bridgman is featured about three-quarters of the way through the one hour program, which you will find especially difficult to turn off. It's difficult to describe what a fantastic job host Andrew Graham Dixon and his cinematographers do with the topic. Enjoy!

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Rare Antique Flag

The Star-Spangled Collection

JULY 2, 2011 The Wall Street Journal, The Star-Spangled Collection
By JUDITH H. DOBRZYNSKI

Morris Offit loves watching people enter the offices of his New York wealth-management firm, Offit Capital Advisors, which is filled with antique American flags. "People are overwhelmed," he says. The flags get people talking—and, in some cases, buying their own.

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Rare Antique American Flag

A banner time for flag collecting

July 01, 2011, Philadelphia Inquirer | by Karla Klein Albertson

American flag waving may be a centuries-old tradition, but flag collecting - especially of those with unusual configurations or interesting variations - started hitting its stride in the last two decades.

And then came 9/11.

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Antique Flag

Old Glory tells a story

The Aspen Times, July, 2011

ASPEN — Since 1998, Jeff Bridgman has been learning about a unique niche in American history one stitch at a time.

The antique dealer who specializes in Americana and folk art was captivated when he saw two antique, hand-sewn American flags at a show 13 years ago. Their beauty and the history behind them opened a world that he hadn't explored before.

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real american stars (& stripes)

May 15, 2010, New York Post | by Barbara Hoffmann

Considering Jasper Johns’ “Flag” painting from the ’60s just sold for $28.6 million, the real stuff is a steal — especially when it dates back to the Civil War.

Flags and folk art in nearly every medium are on parade in “Seeing Stars: Politics and Patriotism,” a quirky little show at the Union League Club of New York. Dating from 1837 to 1944, the pieces are priced from $185 to $250,000 — and every one, says antiques dealer Jeff Bridgman, has a story.

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Jeff Bridgman on Fox news

June 14, 2010 (Flag Day)

 

Antique American Flag Dealer Sells to Stars

September 28, 2010, The Epoch Times | by Katie Mantyk

NEW YORK—Jeff R. Bridgman is a leading expert and dealer of historic American flags and political textiles. He has attracted big name clients such as Ralph Lauren, Martha Stewart, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and Barbara Streisand, who bought flags as gifts for Bill Clinton and Bill Gates.

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Dealer Profile

July 2009, The Magazine Antiques.  The Market by Kathrine Ames

Something weird happened to Jeff Bridgman and his business in 2008—in fact, two weird things. In the midst of a global economic collapse, he had his best year ever, and in December, he made a large sale to a Democrat. "To the best of my knowledge, it was the first time I'd ever made a major sale to a Democrat.....

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Antique Banner Flag

Flags of Our Forefathers:
A Pennsylvania antiques dealer unfurls America’s Past

July 2007, Robb Report Magazine | by Sheila Gibson Stoodley

Much of what we believe about the American flag and its history is not true, or so claims Jeff Bridgman, an antiques dealer in the rural Pennsylvania town of Dillsburg, near Gettysburg, who specializes in vintage examples of Old Glory.  He says, for example, that Betsy Ross probably did not create the first American flag, and that Francis Hopkinson, a New Jersey signer of the Declaration of Independence, is a likelier candidate because in 1780 he billed the government for designing the flag and other patriotic emblems.

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Early Antique American flag

Following the Flags Leads Police to Stolen Antiques in Oklahoma City

OKLAHOMA CITY, OKLA. - The Oklahoma City Police Department, working with a noted antiques expert on American flags and a local auction house recovered nearly 100 percent of the antiques that had been stolen from auctioneers Livingston Estate Services in mid-December. Valued at $30,000, the consigned items stolen in an apparent inside burglary included a very rare eight-stripe, 19-star American flag dating back to the early Nineteenth Century, a rare Shepard Hardware picture gallery mechanical bank from 1885, an Emerson Mickey Mouse radio, a large Lalique Bacchantes vase, six small statues, and six gold coins.

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Pledging Allegiance


Jeff R. Bridgman on American flags, the business of antiques, and the role of the Internet in today’s climate
Published in the Northeast Journal

When it comes to dealers of antique American flags, there is no name in the business as recognizable as Jeff Bridgman. He is, simply put, a dealer’s dealer. He travels like a madman, tirelessly, setting up his stylish displays at antique shows across the nation, tracking down and acquiring superb examples of Old Glory...

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Early American Painted Cupboard

Collecting Painted Furniture– The Rare Milk Cupboard

An Article appearing in Focus, the educational Journal of the Antiques Council

For the entirety of my adult experience in collecting and selling antiques, painted American furniture in original or early surface has been my first love. Nothing peaks my attention like a fantastic set of Pennsylvania decorated chairs in rare salmon paint, or a chrome yellow blanket box with salmon pinwheel sponging, or, better yet, a Mahantango Valley chest with birds, angels, and tulips on the drawer-fronts and styles.

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About Jeff Bridgman - and flags

October 29, 2004, Antiques & The Arts Weekly | by Jeff bridgman

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