felt pennants on early motorcycles

[aka HAWG]

A thought crossed my mind and I hope someone here has a reasonable answer

I have seen many early photo's with felt pennants on the bikes, have also seen a few motorcycle related pennants as well

my questions are " was there any logical reason these gentlemen displayed a pennant on their bikes or was it just a fad of the era??????"

"how early was this being done and how long did it go on for ?????"

lets see what the masses think

aka HAWG

[flat-happy]

ya might try contacting rat sherek at harbor vintage in jonesville vt. he has collected pennants all his life so must know a lot about them. i had a few when i was a kid and i liked them because i could put them on the wall in my room with three thumb tacks and they looked cool without damaging the wall. ----that was important in my house as a kid---- i had a couple of harley ones and a couple from the laconia races

[Rubone]

Aka Hawg,
Just type in felt pennant on eBay and you'll answer your own question. Felt pennants were and still are popular souvenir items. They were the bumper stickers of their time, showing trips taken, favorite brands, sports teams, etc. Got A Harley sticker on your truck? That's your "Felt Pennant" And they date from before motor vehicles covering such subjects as political parties and candidates, wars (Remember the Maine!), and just about anything else. So of course all the major Motorcycle brands had them.
Robbie

[D.Mac]

Maybe AMCA pennants would be a cool item for the Club to sell.
Doug.

[William McClean]

AMCA Pennants

Rub,

Well stated. I like the bumper sticker reference.

The Sunshine Chapter created a pennant for the AMCA's 50th year. I think another chapter made a pennant back in the early 80's.

Flat-happy,

We had the same rules when I was a kid. No scotch tape on the paint either.

Pennants like that bring to mind racoon coats and straw skimmers, headed to the staduim with the team pennant tied on a bamboo cane over the shoulder and a flask of anti freeze in the pocket.

" Boola , Boola...
.. Boola, Boola .. ."

[redfred84]

felt penants

In our old SFMC (established 1904) Clubhouse, we have a lot of the old felt pendants on display. A lot of our 4' long photos show most of the bikes with pendants also. Our biggest pendant measures about 3' long, and was used when our local SF Indian Dealer, Hap Jones, darted out to be the first across the Golden Gate Bridge when it opened in '37. We made up a new penant of this for the 50th anniversary, when we re-enacted this feat, complete with Hap in the lead!!!!!
Penants are cool!
RF.

[T. Cotten]

Damba.

I just let go of half a chest full of old pooltable felt shop throw-covers at D-port.

With all the conjured "history" going on, I shoulda known better and kept them for myself!
(Me good at cutting stencils.....)

....Cotten

[exeric]

We got pennants from Carlsbad Caverns and the 1964 World's Fair in New York. They were still common into the 1970's. I remember Toney Watson and his wife got serious about reproducing pennants of Excelsior, Indian, and Henderson but they discovered that the felt that was used back in the day is not available anymore. If you know Toney, you know that he will not do a half assed job so the project stopped. Too bad because they would have made a first class product.