SARTORI & BERGER.

The unnumbered version is the general company flag, documented in sources from Griffin 1895 onwards and still flying above the company building in the later account. Klaus-Michael Schneider’s image was based on photographs taken on 15 January 2007.

Numbered flags identified individual vessels by their sequence in the fleet. Loughran gives the example 51 and states that numbering ended in 1929 after some 77 ships. The 1890 painting of Anton von Kiel, commanded by E. Aereboe, shows 40, supporting the straight-number format; the painted flag lacks an ampersand on the saltire.

This version has an outlined panel at the bottom labelled “Schiffsnummer im unteren weißen Feld”, meaning vessel number in the lower white field.

The flag is white with a red saltire, black S and B in the hoist and fly quarters, an ampersand at the centre and black characters below. Jorge Candeias read the bottom group as 1773, with the second 7 smaller; discussion questioned whether that character was a dash. Jarig Bakker initially supported the small 7, but Rosanoski subsequently considered the sources to favour a dash and doubted either a date or fleet number of 1773. He had not seen the original source and left open another explanation.

Rosanoski’s comparison gives Lloyds 1904 as 1.-73., Lloyds 1912 and Brown 1926 and 1929 as 1-77, and Reed 1912 as 1-78. A later passage instead describes the Lloyds 1904 S1521 image as 1 and 77 separated by a dash with a dot beneath, which could resemble a small 7 in a reduced scan. This difference within the source is retained. Rosanoski could not explain the use of 1- before a sequence number.

This funnel had been adopted by 1973.