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Unidentified flag Gabon)

Last modified: 2019-08-06 by bruce berry
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image by António MARTINS-Tuválkin, 09 Mar 2017     See also:

Unidentified Gabonese flag

This looks like the flag of Gabon with a black diamond. Any ideas of what flag it is?
Clayton Horner, 24 Feb 2017

Some ideas:

1. What’s the origin/source of this photo?

2. It surely does look like the flag of pre-independence Gabon, specifically due to the narrower middle stripe, without the French flag in the canton.

3. It should be noted that this flag’s overall ratio seems to be the same infamous 3:4, but the yellow stripe thicker than reported 1/9th, being instead seemingly 1/4th. (The overall proportions assumed to be 3:4 = (9+6+9):32 = (8+1+6+1+8):(14+6+14), the latter including the ersatz rectangle enscribing the lozenge.)

4. A black diamond/lozenge is usually a symbol of coal mining — that same convention being used in some Gabonese sub-national Coat of Arms.

5. The convention that the bottom stripe of the Gabonese national flag should be a medium/light blue, interpreted from the fact that, at least, the modern presidential flag, contrasts it to a darker shade of blue.  It seems to have not been present back at the time this flag was used/designed, judging from its clearly dark shade of blue.

So my guess is that maybe this was a pre-1958 coal shipping company house flag.
António MARTINS-Tuválkin, 09 Mar 2017