This month’s VCoM is a trilogy of 1910 L21 Leather College Pennants. The three pendants are for United States Military Academy (West Point/Army), United States Naval Academy (Annapolis/Navy) and the University of Washington.
Similar to the other tobacco cards of the era, these were inserted in to packs of American Tobacco Company packs as an incentive. I am not sure how many Universities were included but there were some interesting choices included; Reserve University, DePauw University and Mount Union University. Even though the University of Arizona was founded in 1885, 25 years before the release of this set, I am unable to find any mention of the school being included in the set which is a bummer.
I picked these three up because of how clean they are, they are in amazing condition with bright colors and no damage. It is fascinating how well the cards from this set have really held up over the years. Some of the cards are condition sensitive with the pennants where white ink was inlaid in the impressions/cuts on the leather have flaked off but the colored pennants do not seem to have the same problems.
These are cool. If they made one for SJSU... I'd be all over it.
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