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What flag is this?

Mistery flag

I saw this flag as a sticker on a car from another country. I could not recognize the plate so I do not know its nationality.

My search on Google/images resulted mostly in the Madrid flag...

flag of the Autonomous Community of Madrid

...and the ECSC flag.

ESCS Flag

But those are certainly not correct. I write from Spain and I have never seen a variant of the Madrid flag such as this, neither official nor unofficial.

The image I offer is not a photo, but a "reconstruction" made by me with MS Paint, but I am pretty sure that it is faithful in colors and in the number of stars and their position.

(I edit to add some clues on the license plate)

I've been looking for Middle-Eastern and North-African plates, because of the crescent moon on the flag, and I'm quite sure this was not an Arabic plate. Plates in most Muslim countries usually include Arabic numerals and letters, like this one:

Dubai License Plate

European plates usually consist of black numbers on a white background and "no frills". But this flag had a comparatively colorful background, green, blue, like a bank note. It's possible that it was a plate from the USA, like this one:

enter image description here

Important CAVEAT: I couldn't see any flower, nor the name of the state. I'm not saying that it was an American plate. But it had green, blue and white colors which made it look like a banknote.

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  • 3
    Interesting question, alas I fail to see how it relates to history. By the way worldlicenseplates.com is interesting to identify licence plates from obscure countries.
    – Bregalad
    Commented Jul 3, 2017 at 7:23
  • @Bregalad Thanks for the link to the plates, but I couldn't look that plate as well as I saw the sticker. The plate looked a bit like a banknote, with blue and white shadows.
    – Ginasius
    Commented Jul 3, 2017 at 7:46
  • 3
    To people voting to close this question, well, I don't know exactly the rules, but there were some other questions like mine which were answered with no struggle. An example: history.stackexchange.com/questions/35173/what-flag-is-this
    – Ginasius
    Commented Jul 3, 2017 at 7:49
  • 2
    If Denis de Bernardy's answer is correct, then it could be (accidentally) relevant to history.
    – TripeHound
    Commented Jul 3, 2017 at 14:37
  • I up voted the question and answer. It did turn out to be about an obscure historic flag design.
    – MAGolding
    Commented Dec 20, 2017 at 2:29

1 Answer 1

33

It might be a Confederate flag, specifically the Van Dorn battle flag:

Van Dorn battle flag

Quoting its wikipedia description:

The Van Dorn battle flag is a historical Confederate flag with a red field depicting a white crescent moon in the canton and thirteen white stars; and trimmed with gold cord. In February, 1862, Confederate general Earl Van Dorn ordered that all units under his command use this flag as their regimental colors.The 4th Missouri and 15th Arkansas Infantry Regiments carried this flag into battle, as well as some of Van Dorn's old units in the Army of Mississippi and East Louisiana.

The thirteen stars in the Van Dorn battle flag reflect the thirteen states admitted to the Confederacy, including Kentucky and Missouri.

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