Vintage Baseball Glove Forum

Wondered did I -- what would do better as far as getting attention, hits (views) of ???
1. A very Nifty Black-Leather Hank Aaron Home Run King MacGregor glove in ex to nr. mint condition . . . VS.
2. A grubby looking Mantle Rawlings XPG20 with the stamping fading.
The prices are roughly similar and I know other factors are involved. But how much will the Mantle glove beat the Aaron as an attention getter?

Joe , here is a case in point. a Mickey Mantle DCT HOH basemitt for $263 with 11 bids. A mickey Mantle MM5 in near mint condition for $305 with 25 bids. It seems condition trumps quality and even rarity easily and with more than double the bidding participation. To me it is the baseball card mentality and why I left that area of collecting. When a dinged cardboard corner sent me into a tailspin, it was time to find another hobby.

Don't know whose gloves you saw but I did have a grubby looking Mantle XPG20 that had 2 seam separation holes at the base of the pointer and middle fingers and a NrMint sea foam green Aaron glove on auction that ended last week.

The Mantle got 110 hits with 15 watchers and sold for listing price of $9.99.

The MacGregor Aaron glove got 43 looks with 7 watchers and sold for $21.49

Wow, I just looked at the original post date...............how funny.

Just a thought, but perhaps why the Mantle got more views and watchers is because people already have that model and are gauging the market. Don't know the production numbers, but I'd suppose that there are a lot more guys out there with XPG20 Mantle's which were produced over many years than Home Run King Aaron's which were made for, what, a year, two tops. Yes, Mickey has more fans out there, but I watch a bunch of stuff that I have no intention of bidding on just to get a better perspective of the market and glove values.

Sorry, what i thought was the original post date was the date softball66 joined. I need to pay more attention.

This isn't unique to eBay either. At the National we had a couple nice Mantles and one really nice Aaron. People barely looked at the Aaron but I got questions about the Mantles quite a bit, even people coming into the booth just asking for Mantle gloves. Lots of Yankee/Mantle guys out there - we had a ton come through the booth at the show.

I think there were several other factors on the two Mantle gloves pictured above, though I agree in some cases that upper condition has trumped quality. I don't think that is a trend is across the board, though, as most of the VG HOH Mantles, Mays, and Musial gloves that I have watched on ebay have typically gone for more than their EX mid grades.

The MM5 above is a picture pocket variation which I believe are less common than the normal MM5s (and cooler), and the MM5 is a pretty solid mid grade model (especially compared to the MM9). I have a lot of Mantles and I still go after the MM5s.

The HOH above is a basemitt, and my Mantle and Musial basemitts over the years have sold for much less than the fielders versions, and in the above case the stamping isn't that visible. I think you can have some minor flaws if the stamping is strong on a 60s HOH glove, but lesser condition and faint stamping is a tougher sell.

Glad to hear that the Mantles are still hot, Brett, that was also they case five years ago at the National in Anaheim.

As expected the Mickey Mantle "so-so" XPG20 got 3 times as many views (hits) and 3-times as many watchers as the nice Hank Aaron Commemorative glove. The Aaron didn't get a bid and the Mantle sold at an acceptable price.
No doubt in my mind that Mickey Mantle Signature gloves were the most produced "autograph" model in the history of glove making. Distant seconds: Ted Williams and Stan Musial. Not that they were any more popular than the Ruth, Cobb eras but the production was so much greater in the 1950s-60s for these type gloves than before or sense. Of the later models, mayabe Brooks Robinson, Ryan, Ripken Jr.
With all the availability of the Mantles, still a demand, even for the lesser conditions and original quality.
Interesting bit of trivia.