Said I was ran off this thread due to insinuations and snied jabs at me....., but had to post this. Russ Pritchard lives outside of Memphis. Looked at the flag this past Friday afternoon. Definitely not a recreation, too thin to be a battle flag, could be a local unit flag or a reunion flag- his opinion a 19th century flag.. The documentation was described as gold once he reviewed it all. Said if not for the machine threading work, would say it was a 1860;s flag. Also, concurred with me on my avoidance of the Pink Palace Museum for two reasons; my concern over offending someone and a scene being caused and to his knowledge they do not have anyone who could authenticate the flag

He shared a story where a black federal judge ordered the removal of a, ACW 2nd Naval flag on display for a CW Naval battle exhibit at the ACW PA museum he was curator for at the time, captured by north during sinking of the Florida( may have vessels name wrong) His museum owns the flag(well Fed. Government does) and they had to get another Federal Judge to reverse the black judge. so my concern are well founded according to Russ, primarily because they have no expert who could authenticate and the political correctness angle. Russ lives in a suburb of Memphis and understands as well as anyone what the "climate" currently is here in Memphis.

He wanted another expert to look at the flag. Arrived to a guy in Florida who Gregg Biggs suggested. John received yesterday and only had time today to do a cursory review . His initial response is 19th century flag, no recreation, possibly early reunion flag, but needed more time to do a thorough exam. Russ and I did find two markings that are so faded camera pics did not pick up nor visible under common residential incandescent light ; you can only see when in sunlight. In the upper center red quadrant, they're stacked on top one another two Christian crosses. Looks to have been black or blue, located in one of the small strips that were sewn together to make up the red field(total of 6 pieces sewn together to make the red). Here is the catch, these Christian crosses are approx. 3" vertically and 2" horizontally. The bottom one looks like standard Christian Cross. The upper one is same dimensions, but has two horizontal bars vs the traditional single horizontal bar as seen in Christian crosses. Plus Russ stated the documentation was "gold:, so YES there were storage lockers in the 1930's. Plus my concern relating to the Pink Palace is this: based on an understanding of the political climate here in Memphis. not an excuse as some had stated-Russ agreed.