If checking in on America's 250th anniversary isn't on your weekly to-do list, you are living under a different historical rock than we are. So far we've been to reenactments, visited battlefields, watched lectures, and listened to more US history podcasts than we could possibly count.
When kicking off 2026, then, it made sense to focus on the strongest, most globally recognized, symbol of our nation: the flag.
The American flag is at times celebratory, contentious, and nearly always complicated. What we find most interesting about the flag, though, is how it has served as a vehicle for storytelling. The American flag has been used to amplify messages, tell tales, and twist tangled narratives. We examined this, and the collector's market, for the January/February 2026 issue of The Magazine Antiques.
