Baseball Glove Collector dot com

ESPN The Magazine

JD — Thu, 09 May 2013 17:16:49 +0000

In June, 2012 I was contacted by ESPN The Magazine through the website about doing a piece on the evolution of the baseball glove. We corresponded back and forth for months, traded some pics and then they said they would send out some photographers to shoot the gloves. (I could have saved them a lot of time as I’m the world’s worst photographer – no brainer.) They asked me to pick out 20 so I did. The piece, called The Collection, was to be their biggest spread to date, four pages versus the typical one page and focuses on different types of sports collections. I chose a few of my favorites and some others I thought would appeal to the typical sports fan and reader like a two finger, a three finger, WWI & WWII gloves, a Winchester and an Abercrombie & Fitch as most people wouldn’t know they made gloves way back when. So, they sent out three professional photographers to shoot the 20 gloves front and back. Then came the equipment…

I could not have imagined the production involved in shooting a few gloves. I usually throw a poster board on the floor, drop a glove on it, turn on the flash and hit a button, then flip and repeat. That’s the extent of my mad photography skills. Not these guys. Each side of a glove took time to stage and then 20 minutes of actual shooting time. They would hit a button and walk away. The camera would take 20 pictures of the glove and overlay one image on top of the other over the 20 minute period. The resulting image was a whopping 500MB file (made up of 20 shots). When we amateurs snap pics, the file size is about 1 or 2 MB. These big files could be blown up, projected on the side of a building and not lose resolution and they were only going into a magazine.

Great guys. They shot for two full days. It had to be expensive. After they were done on a Friday evening, one of the guys staged them into a collage on a whim. He wanted more gloves so he took some off the shelves in my office. Those gloves were just great feelers that I like to put on when I’m on the phone and otherwise aren’t too special. Unfortunately, those gloves rounded out his collage.

When it was all said and done, ESPN had sold more advertising space then they had planned and decided to use the one collage shot instead of the 40 other pics. It made the March 4, 2013 Spring Training issue.

Collecting Fun

JD — Sun, 20 Jan 2013 05:35:42 +0000

For some reason I have a special respect for Joe Gordon. Maybe it was after I saw When it Was a Game on HBO or maybe because he was one heckuva player. Most Gordon glove models are quite common and were made by Marathon (Montgomery Ward), Folsom, Sonnett, OK, M&H Sporting Goods and Stall & Dean. I have owned all of them at one point and over 60 in all according to my records and most were had in the $10-$30 range except for the nice ones.

Although Gordon gloves are plentiful, Nr-Mt or mint ones and the boxes they came in are not. I recently completed my quest for all the known boxes and I couldn’t be more excited. For me, it’s what colleting is all about – setting a goal and accomplishing it. As my glove collecting approaches 20 years, I have never seen any other Gordon box models. If there are any others I want ‘em.

The first one is a Marathon 4206. The second is a Folsom G225. The third is a Marathon 4205 and the best looking box in my opinion. The next is a Marathon 4207 and my favorite Gordon glove model. The last one is another 4205 and a variation and is the toughest Gordon box known. I have never seen another. The green one is tough but there are a few known. (Note about Marathon glove model numbers – if a left-handed model exists, it usually ends in 6 when it’s right-handed counterpart ends in 5.)

The Big Bang & Little Bang

TGC — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 18:54:23 +0000

A sale on ebay that’s been up for over a year carries some mint and mint in the box gloves that we determined came from 1980s sale of gloves from a store or warehouse in Baltimore. That sale resulted in a Glove Collectors Book being produced by Jim Mace, son of a doctor who had purchased many of these gloves. I think we estimated that there may have been easily more than one hundred gloves and many with their boxes. Collector John Graham and I got a “sniff” of these at the 1991 Sports Collectors National held in Dallas. A lawyer in Fort Worth had purchased them from the original sale and had about 30 of these gloves on his table. John and I got busy buying some. I still have my mint Eddie Miller MacGregor Goldsmith glove from that purchase.
We thought, at the time, this would be it for a large lot of near mint to mint gloves and boxes up for sale.
This turned out to be the second largest of this type.
I had a couple of leads on mint “warehouse” gloves existing in Kansas somewhere from a Nocona rep who worked out of Kansas at one time saying that a former employer of his had stored some gloves in a warehouse. Months later some of the gloves actually showed up in our giant East Texas flea market in Canton Texas. (“found, the story goes, in a yard sale in Wichita, Kansas.”) Weeks later a phone call resulted in us finding a gentleman Frank Wolfe, former owner of the Wichita Sporting Goods. To make the story short Mr. Wolfe hadn’t paid his rent on his storage of some 400 gloves and the Warehouse owner had taken over the property. We contacted the owner and Dave Bushing and I purchased the 400 plus gloves, divided them and had a heck-of-a glove sale for about six months shortly thereafter. Seeing all those gloves at one time sort of took our breath away. One glover who came by got a glance and said “well I just died and went to heaven!”
As we mosey on down the road some 20 years later, nothing like these two sales has emerged, not even from the TV show “Locker Wars.” But, there’s always that hope. Near mint and mint gloves still demand the best prices on ebay and this is true for virtually all antiques and collectibles.
The Baltimore find released many late 1930s early 1940s gloves and the Kansas Sale mostly 50s gloves. There might have been a total of 600 gloves combined from both sales. Some of these seem to drift by the ebay stream from time to time. A smaller sale of dozens of gloves “Em-Jays” wound up in the hands of Collector Dan Creed in Chattanooga. It seems these came from North or South Carolina. Dan still collects gloves today.
Oddly a year before the Kanas find I purchased 30 mint and mint in the box gloves including a couple of Mickey Mantle gloves from the just closed Potchernik Sporting Goods in San Antonio, Texas.
Biggest change in the hobby has been that the premium gloves like the Rawlings Heart of the Hides, USA Wilson A2000s, late model Nokonas demand very good prices.
This was illustrated in a 125 glove purchase I made early last fall, mostly autograph models but the best sales came from the 1980s and 1990s Nokonas and Rawlings Heart of the Hide Gloves.
The future will tell us when another “Time Capsule” of gloves may emerge!
Keep your eyes and ears peeled. Or just test the air for glove leather.

Glove Boxes

JD — Tue, 28 Aug 2012 22:50:15 +0000

Ran out of room in the closet so I had to shuffle and move some things to overflow. Boxes are the pinnacle of the hobby but they take up so much room. Once you get one in the box, there’s nowhere to go from there. I get such a kick out of pairing up a glove with the empty box. It gives me something to do and something to strive for. It keeps it exciting for me. But, I’m almost out of room!

These are old photos. I’m up to about 40 Nokona boxes and it’s what I mainly try to collect now. If anybody has any Nokona boxes, empty or not, please let me know.

Gloves in the Movies

TGC — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 20:49:51 +0000

Back in the early yon of glove collecting, (early 1990s) several movies were in the hopper. “Eight Men Out” about the 1919 Black Sox World Series scandal and a followup bigger box office draw, “Field Of Dreams.” Both movies were under the direction of John Sales .
Curiosity got the best of us as we were publishing “The Glove Collector” Newsletter at the time and we interviewed the man responsible for making some gloves and baseballs for both movies John Laliloff (sp.?) John went to some time and effort in re-creating the balls and gloves and laughed when I asked what happened to the earlier movie’s gloves from “Eight Men Out.” “The actors took them home I guess.”
A year or so later another baseball movie for a salute to the Ladies who played baseball during World War II, “A League of Their Own” needed gloves and we were contacted by the prop master John Allen for a Nokona reproduction (they needed a new glove for a scene) and some older ones which David Bushing provided the set. Bushing told me later he wished he’d just loaned the gloves and had gotten them back. At any rate the new glove I sent was used by some of the actresses before the new glove scene was shot and we had to send another. We got the used glove back and it rests in our collections.
Following this we were approached by the prop man for the movie “For the Love of the Game” who needed some earlier gloves for the “growing up” scenes. We turned him to vintage glove collector Doug Wolk who provided some of his leather from Oshkosh, WI.
No “call” from movies until Spike Lee’s company phoned us to get a vintage trapper mitt for his planned movie on Jackie Robinson’s life. We assume the movie never got off the ground though we did get a check for a trapper from Lee’s company.
Oddly that led the latest round of inquiries this from J. P. Jones who was assigned as prop master J. P. Jones. We advised him on the proper look for a mid 1940s trapper and told him we would be glad to help provide him some gloves. He never got back to us but did get some gloves from active internet sellers like Brett Lowman and Rob Mucha who sold some gloves to him. He also turned Rawlings for a re-make of the trapper. Bob had to tap me for a used ’40s trapper to see how the patterns he had fit together. Unfortunately once
the “Humpty Dumpty” Trapper was taken apart, alas, it couldn’t be put back together again.
So it goes in the film industry.
We were in touch with Lamar Smith who said some of the scenes in the upcoming flick were filmed at Birmingham’s Rickwood Field and that he and fellow collectors “checked out” the gloves being used. Smith added that 6,000 “balloon people” were used to fill the stands.
Many times gloves are used in scenes in non baseball films and this always draws attention from glove collectors. Most talked about is the German POW cam’s Steve McQueen who goes into his solitary cell with his ball glove and ball for the movie, “The Great Escape.”
One never can tell when a ball glove might steal the scene!

Oregon Trail Sports Auctions Catalogs

JD — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 05:30:42 +0000

Per your requests, I uploaded all my Oregon Trail catalogs to the Glove Library. It’s fun to reminisce and get nostalgic about the old days of the hobby but it’s even more fun to see so many glove offerings. Oh how we used to look forward to receiving these. Go to the Glove Library and take a look. You won’t see any graded cards in here.

What Smart Dealers Know About Baseball Gloves – Ryan Petty

JD — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 15:53:47 +0000

As I was putting Jonathan’s book on the shelf in my library, I came across this old one from 1992. Has anybody read it? Do you agree with his predictions? How do you think it holds up today? It’s interesting to compare the landscape of ’92 to today.

Dugout Treasures, Memorabilia and Memories – Jonathan Popovich

JD — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 05:24:20 +0000

Back in December I received a rogue package in the mail with a personal note accompanying a book. This note, so eloquently and passionately written, moved me. It was from Jonathan informing me that he had spent the last two years writing a book and asked if I would give it a read.

A new baseball book? I’m in! I have every one ever written on the subject of baseball gloves. I was excited to start reading it. I thought if this book is anything like his note, then I’m gonna love it. He appeared to be quite a writer so I eagerly opened it up and then saw the first picture. Simply stunning. Screw the writing I thought. These pieces and pictures are fantastic. I quickly flipped the page and saw another, and another. The brilliant photography and presentation made it impossible for me to put down. Here’s a hint of what I mean (click on the photos to enlarge):

I did this through half the book before I decided to stop looking and start reading. I’m glad I did. Jonathan is a storyteller. He writes about collecting, but more importantly, about the joy of collecting. He tells us stories about his time on the hunt with his father, John, and his brother, Michael. These stories weave the theme of the joy of the hunt, the passion of collecting and more importantly, doing it with those closest to you. The bond he shares with his family is quite evident and the collection they put together is even more special because they did it as a family. His sincerity and passion were exciting.

After reading the stories about how their pieces were acquired it became evident why it was so difficult to wrangle some of them out of their collection. There is a story behind every piece (oftentimes an educational one), and Jonathan itimately brings us along for the ride. I couldn’t help but reflect back on how much fun I too have had on the hunt over the years and how I long for the innocence of my early days searching for and collecting gloves. I look forward to re-experiencing the hobby through my son’s youthful eyes and I have Jonathan and his memories to thank, and for that, I’m grateful.

Please go to Dugout Treasures Book to order a copy. Enjoy this great hobby and enjoy the read. I know I did, four times…

Sports Illustrated Story on Nokona Replica Glove Revelation

TGC — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 14:11:51 +0000

The publication in June of 1991 of the story on Nokona glove making and our program to make reproduction of its gloves had the germination of a chance conversation with Jim Storey, then president of Nocona Athletic Goods. When we told him were looking for a direct mail marketing program, he mentioned that many old Nokona glove users often asked if the company could re-make its old gloves that they loved. So, the project began with many twists and turns.
Beneficially, it resulted in Nocona Athletic Goods being put back on the map as one of the last of the American Made glove makers and helped them out of a recession of sorts trying to compete with foreign made gloves which had simply shut down domestic plant after plant.
The shock immediate shock wave of the the S. I. story was tsunami in effect. We took 13,000 phone calls in a month. Nocona had about that many and were swamped. In short, we were swamped with requests that it took five or six months to fill.
It gradually segued into a new interest in old baseball gloves and eventually spilled over into bats and vintage baseballs through the decade of the 1990s.
A new era of collecting baseball gloves had dawned.

More On the Glove Finds

TGC — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 14:03:36 +0000

There were several little side notes to the “big” glove finds.
1. The Baltimore or Dr. Mace find. John Graham and I were able to buy about a half dozen of these gloves, some still in their original boxes from a Fort Worth Texas collector who had about 20 or 30 of them and who had owned them for some time (he told us that some of the boxes he had simply fell apart in his cellar where he had stored them. I still have my Mac Goldsmith Eddie Miller. I believe I see five of these glove finds listed under a five glove lot on ebay for about a Grand apiece. Been listed for more than a year though with no takers. Dr. Mace must have purchased more than a hundred of these, I believe which were in an auction held by veteran dealer Lew Lipsett. If memory serves. These gloves can be viewed by Jim Mace’s book on glove collecting.
On the Kansas find, one might assume from the five glove, $5 thousand dollar listing that those hundred or so gloves would set up a nice retirement. We tracked these gloves for more than a year after being tipped off by a Sporting Goods rep. but the original owner denied their existence up until his warehouse owner sold them off. A lesson learned there that I’m sure has been repeated in many antique find situations.
Collector Dan Creed of Chattanooga was able to land about 30 of the emjay find gloves. Dan drew some publicity on this including a page in our Glove Collector Newsletter. Some of these gloves still make the rounds. Oddly the warehouse (see Locker Wars on TV) confiscated the gloves and had some of them in a yard sale in Kansas.
Question now is WHEN does the next big glove find emerge???