Last modified: 2015-01-24 by pete loeser
Keywords: ufe | unidentified flags | 2015 |
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Below is a series of images of flags that have been provided to FOTW; some we have recognized, and some we have been unable to recognize. If you can help us identify any of these flags, please let us know! Contact the: UFE Editor.
Identification Key:
Image from Marcelo Malara, 7 January 2015
Would you please be so kind of identifying the ensign flying from the mizzen of the ship in the attached photo? I suspect Ottoman, but can not be conclusive.
Marcelo Malara, 7 January 2015
This looks like a horizontally striped (possibly blue and red?) ensign with a white disk - I cannot convince myself there is a crescent and star there, but they could be lost in the folds. I have clipped the ensign from the image and posted it at original size on the attached image - if anyone needs the full size image, let me know.
Rob Raeside, 7 January 2015
Thanks for your answer Rob. I am a member of the Argentine´s Histarmar forum (http://www.histarmar.com.ar/), the image has been sent by a Spanish member. Surely it has been taken on a Spanish port, may be Barcelona. It is horizontally stripped, I think two colors better than two fabrics. Not many naval powers would have a masted cruiser visiting a Spanish port. I would say US, UK, Portugal, France, Greek (?), Ottoman empire, Austria, Italy, and the ABC South American powers. Of all, only the Ottoman bears some resemblance, may be the wrinkle make the crescent look like a full moon?
Marcelo Malara, 7 January 2015
My initial response: That's a tough one - I don't think it is Ottoman, as it looks like a full disk, not a crescent. And I think the flag might be horizontally striped - maybe red and blue? Or may be that is just two types of fabric. Where did you find this image? That might help us to locate it.
Rob Raeside, 7 January 2015
If you look carefully you would just make out an outline of a lozenge on the flag... Therefore this would be the Brazilian flag.
Miles Li, 8 January 2015
I had not noticed the lozenge on the flag, but you are right, Miles - there definitely seems to be a lozenge on it. But I think the disk is clearly much brighter - either white or yellow, and the lozenge seems to be the same colour as the second, fourth and sixth stripe, so not the national flag of Brazil. I note that lozenges and blue/red stripes are found also on German shipping lines flags, but I could not find this combination. The recognition of the lozenge pretty much rules out any Ottoman connection.
Rob Raeside, 8 January 2015
Besides the color, in the Brazilian flag the lozenge is larger than the disk, here it is clearly smaller. Here is a good page with naval ensigns I discovered: Man-of-War Ensigns - 1913.
Marcelo Malara, 8 January 2015
The link provided by Marcelo Malara is a very very old website (and interesting too). I remember looking through it a lot, if I´m not mistaken, it was called "Trenches on the web". It is a World War I reference website (maybe mirrored). However, since the source for the Naval Flags (labeled as "Man-of-War") dates 1913, I wonder if maybe this source has already been listed in the Bibliography (perhaps the National Geographic or the Royal Handbook of Signaling).
Esteban Rivera, 8 January 2015
Well, that's the website's name for them, however, it would appear to be what the Dreadnought Project lists as the: "IV Ensigns, Admirals' Flags, etc. (of Various Nations, 10 pages, color)". Unfortunately, they don't give full source information, and since their reference is an archive, rather than a library, we're left with basically the same information we already have.
I'm leaning towards this being the Handbook of Signalling (its bibliographic title). I also saw some mention of the signals mentioned in the handbook never actually having been taken into use, because of a looming threat of war, but I haven't found anything definite as yet.
You may have to contact Mr. William Schleihauf to get more details.
Peter Hans van den Muijzenberg, 9 January 2015
Image by Clay Moss, 7 January 2015
The attached early California Bear flag is reconstructed from a flag originally reported by Whitney Smith, but whose identity is now unknown. It was sent to Jim Ferrigan by Whitney some years ago. I had it redrawn by Clay Moss (attached), but we don't really know anything about it. Whitney reported he found it in the Bettmann Archive collection, now managed by Corbis. Jim called the Corbis people and they pointed out that within the Corbis collection there are over 19,000,000 images, so we need more information to locate it again, either the ID or title name. I've been calling it the Bettmann Flag, but that certainly isn't it's real name. The four horizontal stripes are green, blue, red, and white (from top to bottom).
Can anybody help getting information about it?
Pete Loeser, 7 January 2015
Photo from James Ferrigan, 7 January 2015
Thanks Pete and Clay for bringing this California Flag to FOTW.
Yes, a photocopy of this flag was sent to me in the 1990s when The Flag Store in Sonoma, CA was researching flags for their line of Historic Flags of California, It came via Whitney from the Flag Research Center, who in turn had acquired it from the Bettmann Archive, the massive collection of images compiled by Otto Bettmann, which is now a component of Bill Gates' Crobis Images. The Bettmann collection of over 19,000,000 images itself was a compilation of numerous photographic images and newspaper drawings that was absorbed into the 100,000,000 images of the Corbis collection, so locating a specific image without a title, tagline, date or some way to locate it is daunting.
The hope is someone else may also have seen this before. The design with the modern silhouette of the bear was made into a flag so as to clearly indicate that it was a reconstruction. I will try an see if I do not still have a photocopy of the original correspondence from the FRC. I queried Whitney about it, but it came with no explanation from one of the many clipping services Whitney engaged who constantly sent him flag information.
We did make it up into a 3'x5' cotton flag for sale, and we referred to is as a purported flag from the Bettmann Archive. There were very few made, my guess would be a half dozen. I hope this helps.
James Ferrigan, 7 January 2015
Can we get some information about it first? What's accurate about the reconstruction, and what might not be. For all we know it could be this one.
Peter Hans van den Muijzenberg, 12 January 2015
Nope, not that one, it has a post-1911 bear on it.
Anyway, here is what I know. The stripe pattern and colors are fairly accurate to the replica, but possibly not the correct tint. The star and bear are located fairly accurately placed based on the replica flag we have, but Clay's drawing of the bear may not be correct. In his speculative drawing I think he uses the 1846 model bear design (suggested by me), and not the more modern one used on the 1990s reproduction flag (as shown with Jim's message). That's all I know right now, I´m obviously hopeful a more inform individual can fill in some of the huge gaps of information I currently have.
Pete Loeser, 12 January 2015
Actually, I have used the "current" bear with all of the details removed, attempting to mimic the reproduction flag in the photo that Pete sent. If it is thought that the 1846 bear was the better choice, than I can modify things.
Clay Moss, 12 January 2015
OK, as far as I can tell, this is what we now have on the FotW list about it:
Whitney Smith reported this flag from the Bettmann Archive collection. Presumably this means that the original flag specification is a photograph. He sent what he had to Jim Ferrigan. Do we know whether this was a text with some sort of provenance of the flag and a reference to the photograph, or whether it was rather a lone print/copy of the photograph itself? Do we know whether the subject was a flag or merely a drawing on a piece of paper, a car, a wall, that depicted a flag?
Clay drew a picture of it based on an unspecified replica. In Clay's picture, the stripe pattern of four equal flywise stripes of green over blue over red over white is a fairly accurate reproduction of that replica. The shades of the stripes might not be. The locations of the star and the bear are close to the positions in the replica. (The star is flywise approximately centred in the hoist, but has its centre just below the centre line. The bear is flywise approximately centred in the fly, but has its centre just above the centre line.) I'll assume that in the replica the star was indeed five-pointed and that the bear was passant and facing the hoist, since the difference would have been worth mentioning. We don't know the size of either charge in the replica, nor their colour, nor the orientation of the star, nor the exact representation of the bear.
While the forte of Bettmann's collection was the excellent indexing system, judging by the reported reaction from Corbis this has now been destroyed, making the photograph unlocatable.
Plus, there's supposed to have been a message form Jim Ferrigan to the list, but this has apparently been handled by Corbis as well.
From private correspondence, I understand there's more to add to this, so what more do we know?
Peter Hans van den Muijzenberg, 12 January 2015
To further clarify the so-called Bettmann Archive purported flag, between 1992 and 1995 The Flag Store in Sonoma, CA owned principally by Mr. John Tudor, formerly owner of the Paramount Flag Co. of San Francisco, CA and managed by me, undertook a research project to replicate and offer for sale a line of the historic bear flags of California. To that end we began to compile information, images and where possible, photographs of the flags appropriate to the short lived Bear Flag Republic.
We were subscribers to the comprehensive flag research service of Dr. Whitney Smith’s Flag Research Center (FRC). We asked Whitney for images of the various known California bear flags. Among the images sent from the FRC was a line drawing of the bear flag in question, with hatchings shading the four stripes. There was no explanation accompanying the flag. Since this flag was unknown to us I asked Whitney for more information, but none was forthcoming, as it had been acquired from one of the many clipping services Whitney utilized.
The flag was, is and remains a curiosity. When the time came to decide which flags to carry in the store, we, John and I and the store manager from the gift shop on the Sonoma Barracks, decided to include it, mostly because it was a curiosity. It was displayed during some of the events celebrating the Sesquicentennial of the Raising of the Bear Flag in the Sonoma Plaza during the summer of 1996.
The flag is a reconstruction from the line drawing, not a photograph of an actual flag. For the bear we chose to use a modern bear from a commercially produced California state flag, rather than the silhouette of an 1846 bear so it would be recognizable as a reconstruction, so there would be no mistaking it in later years for an antique. The stripes were reconstructed from the hatchings. The design and placement of the star and bear was based on the drawing.
When I searched the Corbis website for Pete Loeser I could not locate this drawing, so I called customer service and explained the problem. The explained that if it did not come up in their search engine under California or bear or any of the other combinations I tried that I would need a title, a number, a tagline or some more specific way to relocate this image.
I left the store in 1997 after it was sold to a new owner. The original correspondence was in their files when I left to move to Nevada. I gave this information to Pete, and he posted it on the FOTW site in as an UFE entry for this flag.
When Pete contacted me I sent him images of most of the flag we reproduced for the 1996 Sesquicentennial. Frankly I’d forgotten about the flag until I opened my box of Bear flags to photograph them for Pete. In my message to Pete I said I will look through my things to see if I kept a photo copy of the flag, and I will check, but I am flying to Pennsylvania in a day and will not have time until I return.
Perhaps a half-dozen of these were made, and the photographs are of an example I retained.
Jim Ferrigan, 12 January 2015
Let's not loose the whole purpose of this, which is we found a little known historical flag, and are trying to identify it. I had hoped to find out more about it by placing it on the list, and I still do. Was it one of the original first bear flags, or a later invention? Who used it, etc.
Pete Loeser, 14 January 2015
Image from Esteban Rivera, 8 January 2015
Could anybody help me identify this flag, possibly of Canadian origin (the one on the right).
Source: Le drapeau du Québec en berne
Esteban Rivera, 8 January 2015
That would be the flag of the Service de police de Trois-Rivières in Québec, Canada.
Dave Fowler, 8 January 2015
That one is Trois Rivières. The badge on the Canadian Pale flag is the same as the logo flag on our site. Thanks for the proof of its use!
Rob Raeside, 8 January 2015
This must be the flag of the municipal police (Sécurité publique) of Trois-Rivières (Quebec). The flag is vertically divided blue-white-blue (1:2:1) with the emblem in the middle. The motto on the emblem reads Respect Engagement Ethique (Respect Empowerment Ethics). See detail of the emblem here.
Ivan Sache, 8 January 2015
Image from Zoltan Horvath, 9 January 2015
I created an image of the flag for you.
Zoltan Horvath, 9 January 2015
Images from Esteban Rivera 8 January 2015
There's a light blue flag seen here seen in this article: Photos de la place de la resistance `a Port Salut. It seems to be from a foundation of some sort, but I can't recognize it. If someone can give me a hand I'd appreciate it.
Esteban Rivera 8 January 2015
There's this YouTube video.
Peter Hans van den Muijzenberg, 12 January 2015
If all else fails, read the flag..."Fondation Eric Jean Baptiste" (Le Sens de la Solidarité Nationale).
This foundation appears to be set up be a Haitian entrepreneur and benefactor, Eric Jean Baptiste.
Rob Raeside, 17 January 2015
I believe that was already identified. Is the flag of the "Fondation Eric Jean Baptiste".
Jaume Ollé , 17 January 2015
Image from Markus Blomquist, 11 January 2015
Perhaps you can help me in identifying a possible yacht club burgee. The Airisto Segelsällskap Yacht Club is having its 150 years anniversary this year and we have a project in trying to identify all of the burgees that are on the walls of our club building in Turku Finland. There are a lot of them due to close contacts with yachtsmen around the world during a long time. A reason for this is the close relation to the biggest yachts shipyard in the Nordic countries (Åbo Båtvarf 1889-1954).
Markus Blomquist, 11 January 2015
There were a host of flags in evidence in Paris on January 11th at the gathering on La Republique - most of them were recognisable, but no one I've contacted has been able to identify this 4 striped design with a large 5 pointed white star? It is displayed alongside an Israeli flag. The stripes are black, red, blue, green from top to bottom. I imagined it was related to some Somali irredentist or Ogaden based group as it seemed of the same ilk as flags from these areas, but I have not been able to find this specific design in any source or reference.
Jason, 17 January 2015