Americanflat Flag Case vs a Solid Wood Flag Case: Which Is Worth It?

My father's burial flag sat folded in a dresser drawer from 2009 until the first week of March this year. Earl Thorsen was Navy in the Korean War years, and I am his son, a civilian who never served and says so whenever the subject comes up. The flag has been in an Americanflat 5x9.5 folded flag display case on my living room mantel since March, and I have walked past it every day for about eight months. Nine people out of ten who see it ask the same two questions, in the same order. Where did you get that, and is it real wood.

So here is the short answer before the long one. The Americanflat case is engineered wood with a plexiglass front, sized for a 5x9.5 foot burial flag, and it does the job of showing a flag without pretending to be a piece of furniture. A solid wood flag case is the other road, and it is a good road. I have never owned one. I judge that road from listings and from the oak case that has hung in the post hall for as long as I have been making the Thursday coffee there. This is not a comparison written by a man who bought both.

	Americanflat Flag Case	A solid wood flag case
Frame material	Engineered wood. Straight, stable, uniform, and it will not be mistaken for oak	Solid wood, often oak, with real grain you can feel with a thumb
Repair over the decades	A scratch is a scratch. Nothing to sand out	Can be sanded and refinished, so a scuff is not permanent
Ready to display	Sized and stated for a 5x9.5 foot burial flag. Hardware for hanging is in the box	Varies by maker. Some publish the interior, some only the outside
Weight on a shelf	3.8 pounds. Lifts down for dusting without a second pair of hands	Heavier, and hanging it means finding a stud if you can
Sizing clarity	13.2 inches high, 26.4 wide, 3.3 deep, published plainly	Read the interior numbers carefully. Some are built for smaller presentation flags
Front panel	Plexiglass. Will not shatter, shows fingerprints, scratches with a rough cloth	Usually glass. Cleans clearer, chips if it takes a knock
Best for	Getting one burial flag out of a drawer and onto a mantel this week	A case that is itself meant to be handed down

Where the Americanflat Case Wins

The listing tells you exactly what you are getting, and after eight months I can tell you the numbers are honest. Thirteen point two inches high, twenty-six point four inches wide, three point three inches deep, sold for a 5x9.5 foot burial flag. I set my father's flag into mine at the kitchen table in about ten minutes. It went in without a second folding and without forcing a corner, which is more than I can say for a shadow box a neighbor lent me that turned out to be almost but not quite the right size. That shadow box was a good piece of work, built for his own father's medals, and it measured eighteen inches across inside, which is nowhere near enough for a burial flag. I laid the flag into it on a Tuesday evening in February just to see, and the left corner of the triangle rode up over the lip. I gave it back the next morning and ordered the Americanflat that afternoon. That is the whole reason I care about published dimensions. A handsome case that is the wrong size is worse than no case at all, because it makes you wonder whether the flag is the problem. Marge Nowak's flag went into hers the same way in March, when Ray and I drove it over to her house and did it for her on her kitchen table. Two flags, two cases, no fuss either time.

Then there is where it can go. It sits on a tabletop, a mantel or a shelf, and it also hangs with the hardware that comes in the box. Mine is on the brick mantel above the fireplace, sitting, not hanging. Marge keeps hers on the bookcase in her front room, at eye level from her chair, and she wanted it that way the moment she saw how it looked. Marge asked me whether hers could hang on the wall and I told her it could, that the hardware was in the box. She thought about it for a minute and said no, she wanted it on the bookcase where she could put a hand on it. That is the useful part of a case that does both jobs. Nobody has to decide before they see it in the room. At 3.8 pounds it comes down with one hand when I dust behind it, and it goes back up the same way. I bought two of these, one for my mantel and one for Marge, and because engineered wood is uniform the two cases match each other. That sounds like a small point until you have bought the same thing twice for two different houses and watched one come out warmer and darker than the other.

Where a Solid Wood Case Wins

Start with the honest part. Solid wood is the better material and I am not going to talk myself out of that to make my own purchase look smart. The oak case in the post hall has been up for years. When you run a hand along the bottom rail of it you feel grain and heft and a little age, and you know a person made a decision when they bought it. The Americanflat case is engineered wood. It is straight and stable and it will not warp in a Wisconsin winter, but it is not oak and nobody is going to be fooled. If the case itself is supposed to be part of what gets handed down, along with the flag, that argument goes to solid wood and it is not close.

Then there is repair, which is the point people skip. Real wood can be sanded and refinished. A scuff across the face of a solid wood case is a Saturday afternoon, a little patience and a can of finish, and the flag stays folded inside the whole time. A scratch in engineered wood is a scratch, and it stays one. Same goes for a house that moves a lot or a shelf in a hallway where coats swing past. So if you already own furniture you oil once a year and you enjoy that, you know which one you want. The rest of us are hanging a frame and getting on with the week, and that is a legitimate way to live too.

What Eight Months on a Mantel Told Me

Plexiglass collects everything. Dust, fingerprints, and the fine haze that shows up in any house with a fireplace. Mine gets wiped about every other week with a soft cloth, and I learned early not to grab whatever rag is closest, because a rough one leaves fine scratches that catch the afternoon light and never come out. There is an old cotton cloth in the drawer under the coffee table now, kept there for this and nothing else. The first time I wiped the front with a paper towel I left a dull haze across the lower left corner, and it took two passes with the cotton to clear it. Nobody else would ever have noticed. I noticed. That is my main gripe with this case and it is a real one. A glass front wipes up a little cleaner. A plexiglass front will not shatter if a kid knocks into it or if the case tips off a shelf, and in a house with small visitors I will take that trade every time.

The other thing eight months told me is that the flag has stayed folded, clean and out of the drawer. That sounds small and it is not. For years my father's flag was in a dresser two rooms away from anywhere anybody sat. Now it is above the fireplace and I see it while I am reading the paper, and I see it when I am not reading the paper. Marge told me she likes being able to see hers from her chair, and then she changed the subject, which is how that generation handles sentiment.

The one thing that surprised me is the width. Twenty-six and a half inches is wider than people expect. It takes the whole top of my mantel and I moved a clock to the end table to make room for it. On a bookcase it will overhang a shelf that is twenty-four inches, so measure the shelf and the wall before you order, not after. That is the single piece of advice I would give anybody buying a flag case of either kind, and it is the reason I put a tape measure in my coat pocket before I went to Marge's.

For years my father's flag was in a dresser two rooms away from anywhere anybody sat. It is above the fireplace now and I see it while I read the paper.

Measure Twice: The Sizing Question

A 5x9.5 foot burial flag folds down to a triangle, and the case has to swallow that triangle without pinching it. The Americanflat publishes 13.2 by 26.4 by 3.3 inches and states plainly that it is built for a 5x9.5 flag, so there is nothing to guess at. Solid wood cases are sold by a lot of different makers and the interior is what matters, not the outside. Some of the ones I looked at publish the interior, some publish only the outside dimensions, and a few are sized for a smaller presentation flag rather than a burial flag. Read the numbers before you fall for a photograph, and if the numbers are not there, ask. A case that is two inches short is a very expensive way to learn to read.

On the wall, find a stud if you can. The Americanflat hardware comes in the box and 3.8 pounds is forgiving, but forgiving is not the same as careless, especially on old plaster. And wherever it ends up, keep it out of direct sun, off a heat register and out of a damp basement. That is not regulation and I am not going to pretend to know flag law. It is just courtesy to a piece of cloth that was handed to a family at a graveside. Marge's bookcase shelf measured thirty inches, which is why hers went on without an argument. I measured it in February a few days after the funeral, with a tape measure out of her kitchen drawer, and wrote the number on the back of an envelope. That envelope rode around in my coat pocket for a month before I ordered. It is probably still in the glove box, to be honest.

Who Should Buy Which

Buy the Americanflat case if you have one burial flag to display, a mantel or a shelf that will take twenty-six and a half inches, and you want the thing up this week. That was my situation twice over and I would do it again the same way. I am not a woodworker and I was not looking for a project. I wanted my father's flag out of the dresser and Marge's flag out of the plastic sleeve it came home in, and this case did both jobs in an afternoon, one in my living room and one in her front room. If you are buying for someone else's house and you do not know how deep their shelves are, this is the easier gift to hand over, because it can sit on a tabletop and it does not ask them to rearrange a room or drill a wall.

Buy a solid wood case if the case is part of the inheritance. If you have a shelf deep enough, a wall you can put a fastener into, and a family that will quietly argue in thirty years over who gets it, then pay for the real material and be done with it. My father's flag would look better in oak, and I will say that plainly. I have thought about the oak case more than once since March, usually when the afternoon light hits mine at an angle and the frame looks flat. Then I remember that the flag is out of the drawer and in the room, and the thought goes away. What I bought instead was a case that showed up in a box, went onto the mantel the same week, and has held the flag without complaint since March. Both of those are honest choices. The dishonest one is leaving the flag in the drawer because you could not decide.