Vintage Baseball Glove Forum

We all like to look at glove photos. Here are some.
Rawlings GJ57




Rawlings BF76


Can anyone give me any info on the BF76? Doesn't seem to be listed anywhere. There was considerable ink on the fingers: SVJUSD - APE. Which I think is Saddleback Valley Joint Unified School District - Advanced Physical Education.

If this glove was "school property", that could provide a clue about that unusual model number. Over the years I have seen a handful of Rawlings gloves that seemed to be marketed directly to school programs or physical education departments. Sometimes they will have additional stampings indicating them to be special models.

Might that be the case here? It's pure speculation on my part- but speculation based on gloves I have seen in the past.

"B" as in Bellows web. Glove expert Dennis Esken called the Bellows web the best web ever made. "F:" don't know (not a fast back) '76 may indicated the year, "1976" the glove was issued. I'd not seen a Concepcion glove with a bellows but have seen several other Rawlings middle line gloves with it.

Bret, Can you tell me more about schools buying gloves? I can't ever remember any school "issuing" gloves to students. We were always expected to supply our own (although teams had a catcher's mitt and some a 1st baseman's mitt). Seems more like something that would apply to confining institutions like prisons, mental hospitals, boarding schools.

Anyhow, just curious why (and how they could justify it to the financial folks) a school would be purchasing baseball gloves.

Anything specific I could offer up would be purely anecdotal. I have seen gloves with factory stampings along the lines of "Property of Phys Ed. Department" or odd model numbers like "PE-1". Also, some of the catalogs I've received in recent years from companies that sell equipment to high schools have had some mid-priced gloves offered.

the only one I own

mushroomknob wrote:
the only one I own

Beautiful glove!

br

the only big school I can remeber making gloves for the Team has been Notre Dame could have been some imported that I'm not aware of
Doc

In the sporting goods industries these school sales are referred to as institutional sales, meaning the products go directly into institutions such as schools, colleges, even prisons, YMCAs, etc. Also referred to as "team sales" and a lot of football related products are sold this way.
Nocona's "J" series gloves and referred to by the company as Jobber gloves or sales, and were made to specifically go into institutiional sales and were generally middle to lower line gloves.
I've rarely seen schools names printed on gloves as -- Bret's right --gloves are sold more on an individually basis and offered thru retail stores.
But it does happen.

The school district information on my BF76 was handwritten on the fingers with magic marker -- it wasn't stenciled or in any way manufactured.

Another unusual thing about this glove is the color. It's really pale tan, almost white, by far the lightest colored glove I have. Quality seems pretty good, more or less equal to my other "better" gloves.