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Flags with 32 stars are
very scarce. It's likely that there are fewer than 20
flags in this pre-Civil War star count currently known.
Without having studied early American flags over a long
period of time, there are traits of this flag which
could make a collector believe that it was possibly a
fake flag, or at least a flag that was altered to make
it look like an original 32 star flag when it was not.
However this flag is, in fact, an original 32 star flag,
and, given it's small size at just 22" x 45", it's an
unusually small example of the type. It's the only know
example of the type that I'm aware of in this small
size; others typically are 6 feet long or longer. A
handful of examples of 32 star flags in this particular
style which were modified to 34 stars have surfaced over
the years. On these modified examples, one star is
cut and sewn into the space between the top-left
grouping of four stars, and the other star between the
bottom-left grouping of four stars. Since the
maker of this flag invested in the process to print four
even rows of stars, their decision to alter the design
by adding two sewn stars was most likely the most
economical way to adjust to the new star count without
having to change their printed pattern. Like all
others of the type, the canton of this flag is hand sewn
into the stripes. On the right edge of the canton
you can barely see the tips of yet another row of stars
where the maker trimmed the bolt of canton fabric to fit
the space allotted for the canton in the stripes. This
could be mistaken for a person altering a higher-count
flag to make it look like a 32, but the construction
matches others of the type, and is simply a case where
the seamstress needed to make sure the canton fit
properly. Interestingly, additional red and white
stripe fabric is folded over and sewn under the hoist to
the left of the flag. Clearly, the seamstress
realized that the space allotted for the canton was
larger than it needed to be, and thus made a combination
of adjustments--cutting the blue canton as wide as they
could while still keeping the 32 star count, and also
folding over the left edge of the stripes to slightly
shorten the space. The hoist of the flag has two
whip-stitched grommets, which are exactly correct for
this period. While 32 modified to 34 flags appear
on the market every so often, unaltered 32 star examples
in their original form are extremely rare and almost
never surface, making this a true treasure and an
important addition to the Rare Flags collection. |
