Sons of Liberty Flags

#H147 $49 Sons of Liberty Flag, 9 stripe

3x5' Nylon, SEWN Stripes, heading & grommets

#H128 $39 Sons of Liberty, 13 stripe

3x5' Nylon, SEWN Stripes, heading & grommets

"Hey Al, why do thirteen stripes cost less than nine stripes?" The 13 stripe version is mass produced from production run stripes that are made by the mile for the creation of 50 star American flags. It costs much less to produce. The nine stripe version is made one at a time by an American worker who sits there and sews it. Both are MADE IN USA.

So what is the deal with Sons of Liberty flags? Why are there two versions? As I look around the Internet, I find more explanations than you can shake a stick at. Some say that the nine stripe version came first. The nine stripes are variously explained. A common explanation is that they represent the nine colonies that attended the Stamp Act Congress of 1765. Alternatively, "The four white and five red stripes were symbolic of '45' the number of the pamphlet published in 1763 by the English civil-rights activist John Wilkes, whose influence on the American revolutionary movement was second only to Tom Paine's 'Common Sense.' ... Later, the symbolism of '9' came to apply to the nine states represented at the adoption of the Constitution on September 17, 1787 - and also the nine states which ratified it into existence." Source: Mastai, The Stars and the Stripes

Wikipedia says that the Sons of Liberty adopted the nine stripe version in 1767, when it was known as the "rebellious stripes flag", but that a thirteen stripe version also became associated with the Sons of Liberty.

I tell you what I have NEVER seen: An explanation how a secret organization even used a flag in the first place. I mean, if you are part of a secret underground organization do you fly its flag from your front door or enter a float in a parade? I don't think so.

So who were these guys anyway? Well, they were quite the rabble rousers. No shrinking violets they. Their methods of opposing the theft by their own British government of the civil liberties they possessed as free British citizens was not limited to essays, debates, committees and petitions. These guys would clean your clock. They would tar and feather, (a sometimes deadly procedure) they would tear your house down, they might raid your ships and dump your cargo into the harbor, burn your ship or duke it out with your king's troops. They planned and carried out the Boston Tea Party. Names associated with them include Paul Revere, Sam Adams, James Otis and even John Adams. All writings I see describe the group more as an association and movement rather than an organization as we know it with formal structure and membership cards.

All writers I have read describe these fellows as the radicals. They were very mad and they were not going to take it anymore. They seem to have been a movement more than a formal organization. They could call for action that was general enough for any supporter to call himself a son of liberty. As a result of their widespread opposition, The Stamp Act became unenforceable and was repealed in 1766.