Pennant, 7-Star, U.S. NAVY COMMISSIONING

Rare Seven star US Navy Ship Commissioning Pennant. Pennants are very rare to find as they are given to the Ships Captain and very few ever come in the marketplace. They are only used twice, when the new ship is leaving the harbor for the first time and when it returns to the harbor to dock. According to the US Navy Dept. no record explains why early American sailors used seven stars on a Navy Ship commissioning pennant. Circa 1900-1920’s Made of wool, machine sewn. Commissioning pennants are the distinguishing mark of a commissioned U.S. Navy ship. A ship became commissioned when this pennant was hoisted, and the commissioning pennant is flown during both times of peace and war, and is only not flown if a flag officer or civilian official is aboard and replaces it with their own flag.

Today such pennants do not exceed six feet, but early pennants needed to be prominent in order to serve their purpose as signals. This particular example measures approximately 164� in length (or about 13.5 feet), which is still very much on the small side for the 19th century. Commissioning pennants often exceeded twenty feet on the fly and lengths of fifty to seventy feet were not unheard of.

Early on the pennants would typically have a number of stars that reflected the number of states, like this example. As time progressed, however, and more and more states were added, number of stars was reduced to either 13 (to reflect the original number of states) or 7 stars. After approximately 1900, most all pennants had 7 stars. According to the U.S. Navy, the reason for the choice of 7 stars was not recorded. It might represent the 7 seas, or may have simply been what seemed to be a logical design choice when these pennants were substantially shortened.