Vintage Baseball Glove Forum

I just bought from a "noteable" glove dealer on Ebay. 2" sewn on web split finger Spalding glove. It has Maroon inner lining and the glove was in awesome shape, but it was quite dirty. When i cleaned it with Permatex Orange i started "BOLDY" noticing Baby and then Ruth. Under that it says " CANDY & GUM. on top of the Baby Ruth it says original horsehide. I started freaking out !! Under the Horsehide and above Ruth is a Model number or a date? Anyone have a clue? I'll be posting photo's of it in a bit. It's a looker for sure. Before i started cleaning it you could not even see one letter or number..Nothing!! I paid $85.00 for it. I thought it was a good deal just because of the nice Maroon lining....Also does anyone have photo's of the orginal advertising for these gloves? I know they were advertised in Cartoon mags for mail in offers....Any help...Thanks

Above the Baby Ruth name it says " Curtiss Candy" We all "Hopefully" know the Baby Ruth candy bar myth. Babe Ruth never endorsed the candy bar. It's an odd conection though because this is a Spalding glove. It's pre Ruth or Rookie Ruth era. Also the Button is marked "Spalding and is Mint

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My wife found a Hunt auction result Lot #81 for this same glove ending at $120.00 It does not mention in the auction if it was a Spalding glove or not. You can view the auction at http://www.huntauctions.com/online/view ... number=100

My only question now would be what year this glove was manufactured?
Curtiss Candy Co. had to be trying to cash in on Ruth's popularity at the time. any info. would be helpful, Thank you

Not sure of all the background on this glove. But yes I believe about 4 or 5 of these Spalding Baby Ruth gloves have shown up in past years. So I don't think Spalding made many of these and I've not seen them listed in the catalogs. Could be that Curtis candy offered them as premiums with a glove to be ordered with candy wrappers and a payment. These are not expensive gloves and made for kids' hands I think.
Ruth, when asked about the candy company using his name for a product, (the candy bar) Ruth shrugged it off. Curtis claimed the candy bar was named after President Hoover's daughter who was named Ruth (baby Ruth).
Or maybe it was Coolidge.
Currently I'm playing with a "butterfinger" glove. I know this will bring snickers on this forum.
(sorry I couldn't resist!)

I have owned four of five of these Curtiss Candy & Gum gloves. Some say Baby Ruth and some say Butterfinger. Some have the Spalding button and some don't. I have seen the advertisements for these gloves as well. They were redemption gloves. Because I have owned both the Baby Ruth and Butterfinger varieties, I'm not so sure they were anything more than an advertisement for the candy product. The similarity to Babe Ruth didn't hurt though I'm sure.

JD

softball66 wrote: Currently I'm playing with a "butterfinger" glove. I know this will bring snickers on this forum.
(sorry I couldn't resist!)

Dang it! I was gonna say that!!!

Speaking of Butterfingers.