American Parade Flags with Overprinted Advertising
by Jeff Bridgman
Page 4


Another variety includes parade flags used in the celebration of the Nation’s Centennial of Independence in 1876. These are always popular with collectors. The Centennial Celebration involved lots of flag-making and produced nearly countless parade flag variations. The stars of one variety are arranged to create the dates “1776 / 1876” within its star field (fig. 4). This isn’t really an overprint, of course, but is yet another form of advertising in parade flags. An even more rare example, dating to the Civil War, spells the word “FREE”.

So “overprints” might not be the most accurate term for parade flags with advertising. Some wording, like that found in the Cooked Corn Beef flag, appears in the same blue used in the canton and is contemporaneous with the printing of the flag. Some is done with a hand-stamp. Some is done purely by hand with a paint brush. Some uses gilded lettering, or gilded shadowing added to black letters. But most is done in black ink on a second print run of the same fabric or paper.

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