Vintage Baseball Glove Forum

Thanks to all of our veterans who serve our great country. Let's see those great vintage gloves bearing the stamps showing they were used by our troops. My favorite is an OK MFG Joe DiMaggio:

Special prayers for our current troops and all who have served in the cause of our country and who have given their lives for freedom.
Joe, U.S. Army 1957-60
here's a shot of my wartime Bill Doak in local museum. I've also had a
Marty Marion USN (navy) and have the ubiquitous Goldsmith Elmer Riddle
USA.

No web on this one so I improvised. Grateful to ours veterans and troops overseas and wish for their safe return.

I don't have any gloves from the military but wish I did. They went first-class. At Indiantown Gap (PA) in the late sixties they gave us the Spalding 42-211 Frank Bolling model and two years later at Fort Benning it was Rawlings XPG3 Ken Boyer model. We had to turn them back at the end of the season. Often wonder what happened to all those great gloves.

Sounds like the military had good taste in gloves and wanted the best for the troops. They must have had contracts with the equipment manufacturers to get them at a good rate. It seemed that all of the major glove companies supplied the military during World War II and into the Korean conflict. I've not come across any military issue gloves after that - anyone know why?

Brett, it's my understanding from talking with Bobby Storey at Nocona and a few more of the other glove mfg. owners like Larry Dubow, is that during the wartime restrictions on manufacturing, some plants were converted to making other leather articles like Dubow went into leather Bomber Jacket production, other glove companies went into strict contract with the procurement offices to make "ONLY" gloves for the military, no retail gloves, just under contract specifications to the military. I'm sure a glove had to pass some standards as to quality, material and be approved by the federal inspection officials. And it was only one model per company. Don't forget too that Hillerich and Bradsby was making rifle stocks and not bats during WW II.
I've only seen one Korean War glove, a USMC first base mitt. After that
I don't think gloves were made strictly for the military and other means of procurement took place, development of the PXs. When I was in during the late 1950s, we bought our gloves at the Post Exchange (PX) at a much discounted price.

This MM1 was issued August 1945

Does anyone have a Nokona wartime glove? Usually these were the Tony York or G12 models. Marked USA, special services, etc.
Need it for a story.

Hi Joe,

Got a few. I'll dig up the pics and e-mail them to you.

JD