Most of you Wackos know of the misspelled 'MULKILTEO' flags. About 7 known to be in the hands of collectrs + perhaps all of the APs had this error so perhaps 21 have the extra "L".

I arrived at Sean's place last night and he showed me the one he got from ebay a few weeks back.

It is misspelled "MUUKILTEO". Honest. The first "U" has a round bottom and the second "U" has flat bottom.

How could this happen? Two "U"?

I envision this:
1. Harbour Lights receives their first few pieces from the factory which included APs. Someone notices the misspellings of MULKILTEO and...

2. Word goes out to the factory in the Orient "change the "L" to a "U" by adding a downstroke on the right side of the "L". Now the flag is spelled MUUKILTEO. The first "U" is rounded at the bottom and the second "U" is flat (having been made from an "L" Oops...

3. The word goes out again to the factory - wipe out the "MU" on the original master and replace these two letters with one -- an "M". So thie 'Flat-bottom variation' MULKILTEO with a 'flat' U.

4. In the course of production, someone (Harbour Lights? The production company?) decides to round off the bottom of the "U" Thus the 'round-bottom' U variation.

5. Somewhere in the production run, someone notices that the flag has a (C)1996 but the label on the bottom says (C)1995 and decides to fix the flag on the master to (C)1995.

Photos and more Saturday.

Better go take another look at your Mukilteo and any that your dealer has in stock to see how it is spelled!


[This message has been edited by JChidester (edited 07-14-2000).]

Very interesting..I look forward to seeing the photos.
Doc John

I'd give you credit for recognizing how truly unique this one is, Sean. The previous owner knew it was misspelled, but didn't know this had a spelling error never before seen.

Looking at those flags just makes me want to say "Ain't that the damnest thing!"

Congrats on finding it Sean.

All the 'I've-got-every-HL-ever-made' collectors can no longer say that.

No wonder he was mum about it during the bidding.

Here are images of the other Mukilteo OR Flags:


Flat Bottom U:




Round Bottom U:




1995 Copyright:

Looks as though all the flat bottomed U's started out as L's.

Hey Sean, if you and Liz are into weekly dusting, come East in a couple months. I'll save you a bunch of it!