Uncataloged Mickey Mantle Glove

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Uncataloged Mickey Mantle Glove

Postby BretMan » May 17th, 2006, 11:14 pm

Saw this glove at an out-of-the-way antique mall. There is one booth there where the owner always has a selection of old gloves. He has quite a variety, mostly 1930's thru 1960's stuff. Some of it is beat up, some in nice shape, but all of it priced at the highest end of the possible price range. Unfortunately, the booth owner is never around and there is no contact information, so I can't haggle with the guy and try to get the prices down a bit.

Last trip through, he had a Mickey Mantle glove that, I believe, is an uncataloged model.

This was a JC Higgins glove, which in itself is odd for a Mantle model. It was a small-ish, about 10" glove that looked to be mid-to-late 50's vintage and had a model number of 1673. The Mantle endorsement was the "old-style" signature with the "looped" M's. It was in good-very good condition.

I don't see any JC Higgins Mantle gloves in the Catalog Source Book, but the Autographed Glove Finder lists a JC Higgins Mantle glove with a model number of 1674.

Most of the Higgins gloves seem to be Wilson-made. Perhaps this was a Denkert-made glove? I don't recall seeing the familiar Denkert "Pro-Maker" logo on this glove.

The bad part was that it had a price tag of $95 on it, so I passed.

Has anyone ever seen a JC Higgins #1673 Mantle model glove?
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Postby softball66 » May 20th, 2006, 8:23 am

Right you are Brett. Most of the Higgins gloves were made off brand by Wilson while Rawlings concentrated on making gloves for Montgomery Ward. An old Rawlings employee told me that Rawlings had to break five or six old glove contracts when they signed Mantle to his endorsement. These Higgins Mantle models are rare, like the off brand Denkert made and this was likely made by Denkert.
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Postby BretMan » May 20th, 2006, 7:14 pm

Just from observation, looking at hundreds (thousands is probably more like it!) of glove auctions on eBay, I'm not sure if I ever recall seeing a JC Higgins Mantle glove. The Denkert gloves seem to pop-up fairly often. I see betwwen a dozen or two, at least, every year.

Your post also mace me think about something else I have seen with regards to the "glove resellers". Of course, most of the JC Higgins gloves were Wilson-made and many Montgomery Wards were actually Rawlings products.

Is there any documentation on who actually made most of the Ted Williams brand gloves sold through Sears stores? I see a lot of them that look identical to MacGregor gloves sold in the same era- same webbings, lacing patterns and many of thesame stampings.

Did MacGregor, in fact, produce many of these Ted Williams/Sears gloves?

And, on a similar subject, what was the deal with the Rawlings-marketed Ted Williams "Hall of Fame" model? This glove has some of the same stampings as the Sears models sold at the same time and, if I recall, has a model number that matches the Sears gloves (16XXX).

Did Rawlings make this glove for sale through Sears? Why is there a seemingly identical model without the Rawlings identification, that is labeled as a "Ted Williams" brand?
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Postby softball66 » May 29th, 2006, 9:28 am

Brettman -- savy observations. It's my impression that Wilson, MacGregor, Rawlings probably made or had made some of the Ted Williams gloves. The Williams gloves were in the Sears line from 1960 to?? so Sears was probably shopping around from various manufacturers. Virtually all had gone to Orient for productions so they just added in the Williams gloves using their (the mfg.) designs of the time.
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Postby baseballnmore » June 3rd, 2006, 12:10 am

I thought I share with you all some pictures of my J. C. Higgins Model 1673 Mickey Mantle Glove. It's my favorite Mantle glove because the signature is so big

http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h271/ ... 0_1006.jpg

http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h271/ ... 0_1004.jpg

http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h271/ ... 0_1009.jpg
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Postby BretMan » June 3rd, 2006, 10:29 am

Thanks for sharing those photos.

Now I know that I wasn't just imagining things!
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