Hi, If your in the SF Bay Area, you may want to stop by the war memorial building at 401 Van Ness Ave(across the street from city hall and to the right of the opera house). Between now and June 12th there's an exhibet of president Ted Roosevlets personal collection of historical artifacts from the Philippine-American war, or "Philippine Insurrection". Included among the artifacts is the satin flag captured from General Emilio Aguinaldo that he had made in Hong Kong to be the new flag of the RP, the rifle that fired the first shot in the Spanish-American war, the rifle that fired the first shot in the Philippine-American war, swords of American officers stationed in the PI, and the medal of Commodore Dewey. Most of these items were in storage in the war memorial building since 1932 and were just opened last summer. There's still a bunch of boxes in back they have yet to open. To round out the exhibet several collecters have generously donated items for the length of the showing. Included is a battle flag of the Sulu Sultanate, Muslim, Visayan and Katipunan weaponry, and two suits of Moro armour. Its not a large exhibet but is priceless in terms of content. The curator, Rudy, is a nice guy, just don't expect him to know anything about any of the weaponry unless its a gun. If he knows anything about any of the swords its because I have a big mouth. He's also the one that did the research regarding Aguindaldo's flag.
SF, BTW stand for San Francisco. San Francisco, CA, USA. Sorry to all the brits, I know portitions of that collection may hit the PI and Macao latter in the year.
wow! would love to see that, crucible, esp. the sword collections. would really be nice if these types of shows would travel the country as at this moment it's just not feasible for some of us to check out this kind of stuff. sayang!
i wish that the original "hong kong" flag be returned to the philippines. yet i know that it would probably be better taken cared of by the u.s. government.
I think Teddy Rooselvet's(how do you spell that) collection was donated to the War Memorial building, so it might be considered the building's property. Regarding the weapons, stop by the bay, Spunger, most of that sandata belongs to people you know or are already aquainted with. Shootodog(I'm used to saying dawg, as in "Wassup dawg?"), I think their main interest was just getting the flags identity verified. There's a ton of flags in various collections and museums, this is the only one thats been found that's made out of satin. Its recorded that Marcella Agoncillo sewed the flag from the finest satin, and its also known she was a painter, and the sun and stars on this flag are all hand painted. Now that many experts in the PI have agreed that all evidence pionts to it being General Aguindaldo's flag, their focus is on preserving it. Its pretty beat up. After that........who knows, if enough of a demand is raised from interested parties, then maybe it'll go home. But if no one says anything, I doubt it'll move from where it is. I know the curator wants to use the flag to raise awareness about the Philippine-American war since its barely a footnote in most US history books.
