A friend-of-a-friend posted the below photo of a flag found in her family’s possession; acc. to her aunt, they think it’s from the 1890s. Since it has 45 stars (which indicates Utah was the newest state), that dates it from 1896 - 1909.
It looks unlike any U.S. flag I’ve seen, given there’s only one thick red and one white stripe, plus the blue canton going the entire width of the flag. Could it be a state thing? A novelty? I dunno. Any ideas?
Looks like a variety of bunting – decorative stuff that looks like a flag, but isn’t:
Hmm, I’ve heard of bunting of course, but hadn’t even considered that interesting possibility! If so, it looks like it’s been cut and “finished” (the right edge has binding that wouldn’t exist except at the very end of the fabric), perhaps for storage purposes? The left edge has three holes that make me think it was intended for some sort of display other than the box. Could just be a presentation to mark whatever event the bunting had been used for. (If that’s what it is, at least.)
So the 45 stars could just be an indication of nothing more than where it was cut–totally random. I’ll put that idea up the flagpole and see if anyone, um, salutes it. 
Thanks!
Sorry to double-post, but it just struck me that one aspect that makes the bunting theory* marginally less likely is the configuration of the stars. I’d imagine that proper bunting would’ve just had a field of stars going nonstop across the blue canton. Why break them up into groups of–well, let’s assume eight, since that’s the longest unbroken section? An unusual choice.
But it’s not a dealbreaker. Could just be an original thinker among the creators who make bunting, whoever they may be.
Id venture that this was manufactured with the 3 holes to be hung down like this
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjZmcmH1P7RAhWh7oMKHfkGDNAQjRwIBw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.outerbankscountrystore.com%2Fburlap-2%2F&psig=AFQjCNGlCYqU7J-V_1v35VIZOK5SglUz1A&ust=1486579900334811
I’m pretty confident it wasn’t an official US flag, and was more for decoration like bunting or a banner.
Also note the placement of the stars; there’s a wide margin to the left of the stars; none at all to the right. It looks to me as if the blue stripe was cut more or less randomly from a larger bolt of cloth that had stars in a repeated pattern of 8 x N, where ‘N’ is some number larger than three.
‘N’ could be six, since while the US flag had 48 stars they were conventionally displayed in an array of 8 x 6. Some manufacturer could have produced bolts of cloth with repeated 8 x 6 arrays, out of which you could cut the canton for a flag, and someone else has just cut a chunk out to create this bunting. If so, that would make the bunting later than the OP suggests.
It’s a decorative flag, nothing else.
I once got curious about the distribution of stars at various stages of US history and went through all of them (easily found on the web) and there was nothing even remotely like that. They all had the same blue field and the same 13 stripes with an appropriate arrangement of stars.
BTW, until 1912, you will find a variety of arrangements of stars for a given number. Before then, only the number of stars was specified, not the arrangement on civilian flags (the military branches had official patterns on flags for their use much earlier than that). Fotw discussion on the subject:
http://www.crwflags.com/FotW/flags/us-ststr.html#arrange
Also, the 15 star flag after Kentucky and Vermont were added had 15 stripes. They reverted to 13 after that.
Agreed. I’m a big flag buff and have never seen an actual flag with that design.
Could be a sample from a factory that makes bunting. As with some carpet samples, the addition of the edge at the far end with the grommets, as well as the finishing hems around the edges, would be to show the prospective purchaser of the bunting that they could expect their products to be finished in any way they wished.
Essentially, not intended as an actual flag, at all; rather a demo of both fabric and physical stitching possibilities.
