More of those "mysterious" tags

[okdoak]

I see that the same seller has a Higgins Bob Feller on ebay now with that "rare" mystery tag inside the wrist strap. It's getting really hard to believe that this is only the second out of the "hundreds of gloves" he's sold that has that tag. I just finished looking thru a few of my gloves and I found those inspection tags on a Spalding Joe Cronin, Wilson Andy Pafko and 601 unendorsed, and (all Higgins) Travis Jackson, Morris Arnovich, and Bob Feller. I bought the Arnovich about 15 years ago when I was the greenest of collectors and figured it for an inspection tag right off, just like the kind they put on blue jeans. Even though he doesn't have a high BIN price on the glove, I wish he would just give the "rare" and "special" crap a rest.

[vintagebrett]

I looked through some of mine - found the tags inside on a Wilson 620 Billy Herman, a JC Higgins 1684 Mel Ott and a top of the line 1930's generic professional model.

[softball66]

good work guys!!!
If we're looking for a pattern would we say, with exception of the Spaldings, that most of these gloves are Wilsons and Higgins and of what eras 1940 to 195?

[softball66]

I pulled up some other of his current gloves listed and he is showing a Nokona" Bob" Lemon glove G6 that is undoubtedly a Jim Lemon gloves. Big
difference in Bob and Jim Lemon, Bob's a hall of famer of course.
I questioned him with an email. Let's see if he responds. I think I know this seller. Fairly long-time glove and equipment dealer.

[softball66]

Nocona did put Bob Lemon's name on the little G6. I'd forgotten they added that later though "the" Bob Lemon didn't have a contract with Nocona that was found. So they took James Robert Lemon's name (contract) and changed it to "Bob" Lemon.
But, I guess, it's still ol' Jim Lemon.
i.e the Billy Martin and Joe Jackson nokonas

[breakin]

What the?! Another glove with a tag that is the # of the player? I don't think he just got this glove in and discovered this, he told me he was selling his collection because his kid wanted him to buy a boat. Why didn't he mention this glove to me the last time round? He said he's never seen a tag with a players # inside and he had 2! I'm sure after this one, there will be another. Surely, if you find two gloves, each with a # that corresponds to a players #, that would be a 2 in a million chance and the odds of it being a potential player glove goes way down. No? But I think the problem here is putting that "dream"into a buyers head, and causing them to up the price. And he's using the JOE D glove to sell this one!?

Note the glove how shiny. He just coated it with whatever he uses, and he will need to coat it again before he ships(well, that's what he admitted he did to me anyways). But when i got mine in, there was no gloss and the glove didn't look anything like the pics, so I'm not sure what he's up to. Except making his "regular" mitts appear "special".

[breakin]

Guys/gals, I think I know what these tags mean, it's not a "inspection#"!!!(???)!!!
After seeing this glove, how the tag is almost identical in shape/placement as the JOE D spalding I purchased, i think this is a "production" tag used to identify the glove when on the assembly line, so the person who is putting the signature on the glove knows, who's signature to put on. (?)

Of course, if you guys are finding #'s that do not correspond to the player...(it might be a code or correspond to a #/line on a page that the assembly line was using to determine what player's name went on what glove.. or, maybe in the older days, they messed up confusing the #'s, so they said "why don't we just tag the glove with a players# and then pull the tag after done", but they didn't rip off fully because they were sewed in wrong/crooked. Do they have 19 inspectors on the line? 5 sounded reasonable but 19?

I am more upset now than I was before because he said he never saw anything like it, and now he has another.

[okdoak]

My guess is that the tag is related to quality control. I know that they put the stampings on before they sew the glove together. Perhaps the wrist strap is sewn on last and someone looks the glove over before they attach that little tag? As far as the numbers go, my Spalding Joe Cronin has a 10 on the tag and the Higgins Mo Arnovich has a 3 (Babe Ruth connection?!!! )

[breakin]

Sounds reasonable to me!

does everyone's tags look messed up? what I mean, like a mistake? Triangle? etc

Ruth & Arnovich were cousin's weren't they?

[murphusa]

They are bench tags to show where in the factory the product was made. It was a fairly common practice in manufacturing plants that did handmade type productrion

[softball66]

I think we're all on the right track a bit in that these are inspection tags and don't have anything to do with a player's uniform number.
But, I'm not sure these tags are being used for internal controls or identification. All of the gloves where we have discussed having these tags are in the late 1930s or early 1940s period. And, of course, we know that these factories during WWII and likely between 1942 and 1945 were turning out gloves for the military under a government contract. It might have been a requirement of the government to have an inspection tag placed on these gloves.
That said, I didn't find any tags on the Rawlings and Goldsmith war time gloves that I had. And, the gloves we have discussed are either Wilson (Wilson likely made if it was producing the Higgins gloves but not sure Higgins gloves went to the military) or Spaldings.
So, we've got the gloves with tags in a certain time period and with certain companies. And, as far as we know, these types of tags were not used before or after this time frame.