EdGrune
I'm not aware of any pre-glued paper flags. Those with the old Revell kits were not glued, but could be so with some white glue.
Ed, your age is showing! I'm sure you're correct that relatively recent reissues of Revell ship kits haven't had adhesive "flagsheets," but back in the Goode Olde Dayes they most emphatically did!
If I remember right, there was a standard sheet that came with virtually all Revell American warships - regardless of scale. It included at least one ensign, at least one jack, and a full set of alpha-numeric signal flags - complete with captions. (I remember getting into a discussion with my father - a WWII vet - about the fact that Revell was using the "new" system of words for the alphabet flags - alpha, beta, etc. - rather than the one he'd learned - able, baker, etc.) The instruction sheets typically told the modeler to run a piece of thread from the bow of the ship, up to the masthead, and down to the stern, and stick the signal flags on it. (No reference to scale flag halyards; they would have been far beyond most purchasers' capacity.)
Non-American, non-naval ships had their own flagsheets. I remember the incredibly small Cunard/White Star house flag of the Queen Mary - and the American ensign to fly at the foremast, as though your model was crossing the Atlantic headed for New York. The Bismarck had a Nazi ensign. Etc.
In my (much, much) younger years I spent a fair amount of time trying to cut out all those tiny flags neatly, licking the back of the paper, and trying to fold them over pieces of thread in such a way that the halves aligned right. As I remember the adhesive wasn't particularly good; the teensy signal flags frequently came unglued after a few weeks.
The most impressive flags in Revell kits, by a long shot, were those that came with the sailing ship kits. Back in the fifties the company apparently had at least one artist/draftsman who was obsessively interested in getting the flags right - according to his/her slightly odd standards. The Revell H.M.S. Victory flagsheet had the correct white ensign, jack, and admiral's flag, and an incredibly small, but legible, rendering of Nelson's October 21, 1805 signal hoist: "England expects that every man will do his duty." The latter had the flags for the individual words grouped together correctly. The modeler was supposed to cut out each "word" (in the form of a short strip of "flags"), fold the strip in half, lick the back, squeeze it over a piece of thread, and, when the glue was dry, slit the individual flags apart (without cutting the thread). Quite a trick. I don't know how many modelers ever did it successfully; I certainly didn't.
On several occasions the designer went a bit over the edge. I don't know which manufacturer started the trend of drawing flags with "ripples" drawn in perspective. That's always struck me as downright irrational: a two-dimensional piece of paper that is, in essence, a picture of a flag, mounted on a three-dimensional model. This phenomenon appeared in quite a few kits; the most spectacular example, perhaps, was the grand old Revell Santa Maria, originally released in 1957. The Renaissance heraldry on those flags is really remarkable - especially in view of the fact that the artist had to draw each of the intricate designs twice (half of each flag being a precise mirror image of the other). The modeler's job was pretty delicate too: cutting out those super-elaborate, curvy shapes, then licking the back and squeezing the flag together over the rigging line in such a way that the halves lined up exactly. It doesn't seem to have occurred to the responsible parties that (a) flags made like that look absurd when viewed from anything but just the right angle, and (b) any modeler with sufficient dexterity to dress himself is capable of giving his flags genuine, three-dimensional "ripples" in a few seconds. How much easier it would have been for those fine draftsmen to draw those flags "flattened out"!
Revell Germany recently reissued the old Santa Maria, complete with flag sheet (and those wonderful decals for the shields): http://www.revell.de/en/products/model_kits/model_kits/products/?id=210&KGKANR=0&KGKOGP=10&KGSCHL=3&L=1&page=1&sort=0&nc=&searchactive=&q=&SWO=&ARMAS4=&PHPSESSID=2a9f24d32c580d9ed754f6ab20bffb87&KZSLPG=&offset=1&cmd=show&ARARTN=05405&sp=1 .
Click on the "360 view" button and you'll see what I mean.
BUT there's something interesting going on here! The model in the photos obviously has the old, original, "phony ripple" flags. But if you click on the "Instruction Sheet" option, you'll see (in the last few pages) what appears to be a reproduction of a flagsheet with sensible, "flattened-out" flags on it. Did somebody at Revell Germany come to his/her senses, and redesign the flagsheet? Or did the draftsman who drew the instruction sheet cheat a little? Not having a new German Santa Maria in front of me (or any intention of buying one), I have no idea.
Anyway - yes those old flagsheets (or some of them, anyway) had glue on their backs. If I close my eyes and think hard enough I can just about remember the taste of it. Ah, memories....come to think of it - maybe the amount of the stuff that I ingested in my younger years partially explains why my 59-year-old brain functions (or fails to function) the way it does today....