Vintage Baseball Glove Forum

What are the forums views on the enhancement of a glove. Relacing is accectable?, replacing the insides OK?, but what about re-doing the silver?

Just trying to get some thoughts as I am being offered a group of gloves that to me look like they have had something done to them

Just one of them



and another

If those have been re-silvered, they did an amazing job. But the gloves are used gloves with evidence of oil, patina, character marks, or whatever you call it. It bothers me that the silver just appears too "new". It should have some wear or discoloration from use or conditioning.

Scott

I'm on the fence on the whole re-silvering of gloves thing. If the glove looks Mint/ Excellent then I don't have a problem with it as long as the work is disclosed to the potential buyer. If it is to be kept in a collection then go for it. I do have a problem when a glove is dirty or in poor condition and has a blazing signature and stamping. I also hate the smear that is left on some of the gloves that have been "doctored".

The ones pictured look a little too nice, but they look great on the cleaned leather. I'd pick them up, but not at Mint prices.

Just my 2 cents.

Basic question on re-silvering. If done, it should be described as such, i.e. re-lacing, relining.
Overall a good job of stamping enhancement, but you can see where the paint went a little outside the stamping lines especially on the Rizzuto. And look at the non-name stamping such as the model number. There is also a "glow" around the repainted area where probably a silver air brush was used, possibly by an artist (I've seen these people at work in the advertising art business). These are some tell tale signs.

Unless the seller specifically says that they are, I doubt that those are re-silvered. They look like foil stamps which is what the factory would use. It's possible to do it by hand, but you'd have to be a master of the technique to do the fine details that cleanly. There are probably a handful of book restoration experts that could pull it off, but, it would be so expensive that you'd never see a return on the sale side. Any discoloration on the palm like that is probably due to the leather being greased or waxed on the suede side of the leather, not from use. Anyway, that's my 2 cents.

I see what you're saying.
Take an enlarged (blow up) look at the Phil Rizzuto stamping. I've seen a couple of hundred mint gloves of this era and haven't seen anything this bright or outside of the lines (unless enhanced) like this that appears like factory stamping, and this glove is 60 years old or so. Factory stamp ink generally lies in the indention or impression.
Not sure about book restorers but what we call "air-brush" artists that could maybe pull this off. But I've seen these attempts to add silver before and that's what it looks like to me.
And. . . after a decade or so on ebay I'm not sure I could trust some sellers to reveal anything.