Last modified: 2025-06-07 by martin karner
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Черноморское морские пароходство
– Black Sea Steamship Company – BLASCO.
Lot of flags at the celebrations of the
175th anniversary of the company in Odessa at
www.infoflotforum.ru.
Chrystian Kretowicz, 14 February 2008
#1
#2
images by António Martins, 21 July 2024
The color plate intitled "Hausflaggen" of the Meyers Konversations-Lexikon.
Eine Encyklopädie des allgemeinen Wissens includes as its
number 35 (3rd. col., bottom row of 9) an incorrect depiction of a
houseflag we apparently never covered (image #1). Unlike others on the same page,
this flag is very oblong, tappering to single pointy tip: It's shown
with two folds and in a smaller hoist size than the rest (which are
mostly shown as 2:3 quadrangles). It has three identical horizontal
stripes, also converging to the fly tip: white over black over red; on
the middle stripe white serifless letters reading "Р.О.ꓵ.и.Т.". The
legend text reads "35. Russ. D.- u. Hand.-Ges., Odessa." [Russische Dampfschifffahrt- und
Handels-Gesellschaft = Russian Steam Shipping and Trade Company]. (All this is
valid for both [mkl06] and [mkl97], at least.)
I see three mistakes in this illustration:
1. The middle stripe should be blue, this being a variant of the
contemporary Russian merchant ensign; other blue
flags on the same color plate show as expected, so this is not a
printing mishap (Unless it's really black? That'd be as interesting as
it is unlikely).
2. Regardless of the meaning of this initialism, "и." should not have
the abbreviation dot, as it is just the word "и", meaning "and", as
strongly suggested by the fact it's uniquely in lower case.
3. The letter "ꓵ", an upside-down "U", is not a correct cyrillic
letterform in this context (could be an "и" in a fanciful cursive type
or hand). I strongly suspect this is a misinterpreted "П".
I drawed a reconstructed version of this flag (image #2), with blue
middle stripe and regular letterforms and punctuation. Any suggestions
on the meaning of this initialism?
António Martins, 21 July 2024
At eBay [retrieved] someone apparently
slaughtered a supposed Meyers 1900, and posts a page which lists "Hausflaggen" – house flags:
picture [The flag discussed above is also on that page].
[...] It turns out there is now a page on eBay with house flags from Meyers 1906
(www.ebay.de... [retrieved]).
This is a page from Meyers Konversations-Lexikon, an encyclopedia, and it is therefore likely that this is simply the one page
it had about Hausflaggen (house flags) > [mkl06], which is the 6th edition [see note at the flag chart's
bottom edge] [...].
Peter Hans van den Muijzenberg, 31 December 2017 [quoted by A. Martins, 21 Aug 2024]
A possible wording could be "Russian Organization for Steam Shipping and Trade"
(Российская Организация Пароходства и Торговли).
That would fit with the suspected initials.
Martin Karner, 1 September 2024
