AUGUST CORDS.

Merchant Ships presents an original funnel, but Rosanoski questions the sequence in relation to the company’s formation in 1903 and its appearance in Lloyds 1904. The note’s illustration numbering is inconsistent.

Some flags omit the dots after the initials, as in C1231; Lloyds includes them. Funnel illustrations are generally too small to establish the dots, although Merchant Ships shows signs of them. Merchant Ships 1942 and 1944 state that the funnel letters may be black.

Brown 1971 and US Navy 1961 show the funnel diamond short of the full band width. Mitchell likewise places it within the band, with letters drawn in black pencil. Rosanoski doubts the black-letter variant: Brown shows black in 1926 and 1929 but white in 1934, 1943 and 1971. Brown generally places the flag diamond within the field, except in 1971, when it reaches the edges.

The flag is blue with a red lozenge bordered white and white AC initials. The FOTW rendering of Lloyds 1912 omits the dots and uses darker blue. Flaggen & Schornsteine gives a light shade, whereas the Flaggenbuch versions use dark blue; the 1928 diamond reaches hoist and fly, while the later version appears to stop just short. The German chart sources also associate the livery with K.R. Aug. Cords and Aug. Cords u. Cords & Co. GmbH.

Rosanoski considers the diamond in the FOTW C1079 rendering too small, probably because the scanned source was distorted. He reads the source as showing the diamond throughout, or nearly throughout, as in C1076, allowing for printing limitations. Lloyds 1904 and 1912, Talbot Booth 1938–42 and US Navy 1961 include dots; the German Flaggenbuch, Massary, Lloyds Reederieflaggen, Esso and Flaggen & Schornsteine sources omit them. The Esso/Flaggen & Schornsteine series distinguishes blue shades and shows this flag in the lighter one.