Large 1916 Ferguson Bakery BF2 Premium Pennants

Here are the ultimate showpieces for their respective star ballplayers…and special, ultra-impressive examples from a truly rare release! These large-sized treasures take the form of impossibly elusive, "Photo Prize" versions of Ferguson Bakery's "BF2" pennants. At the time of this writing, the hobby has documented the existence of just six different "BF2" premium pennants, and five of these amazing relics are presented in this catalog section.

In 1916, a New England-based bakery aimed to promote sales by awarding small felt pennants, packaged one per loaf of Ferguson or Fleischmann bread, to its customers. These items are widely known in the industry as "BF2 pennants," and, in their own right, the collectibles are popularly pursued. According to Krause's Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards, a premium offer was also available for substantially larger pennants crafted in much the same fashion as the standard give-away inserts. The premiums, however, necessitated the redemption of 50 "tickets" (i.e., bread coupons) as the required exchange tariff for a single "Photo Prize." From this distance of 95-plus years, and factoring the painfully localized distribution of the product in the first instance, these premiums would have been intensely rare even in 1916. Fanning the fire of their scarcity is the almost punitive necessity of fifty coupons to earn one of these prizes. (The composite considerations in attaining a BF2 premium pennant don't fare too well in comparison to the relative abundances of other, exclusive productions such as L1 leathers, S81 Silks and the like; there's little wonder that today's checklist of known, BF2 giants has expanded only glacially.) The spirit of the pennants' design is much like that of the BF2 issue, except that the bigger-dimensioned variety is further embellished with appliquéd fancy.

The offered pieces are about 24" in length and 9" across the spinal aspect. The relics bear, in turn, a 2-3/4" x 4-3/4", black-and-white photo attachment of their subjects.


CLOSE WINDOW