Vintage Baseball Glove Forum

The 1905 patent below of a catchers mitt by Burt Rogers for Victor Sporting Goods shows a face made of two pieces sewn together. Line h in the drawing is the sewn line joining the heel section to the palm section. The sewn lines are of unequal length with the palm section being longer so as to create a puckering along the sewn edge which forms a concavity which becomes the pocket of the mitt. This sewing technique is common in the leather industry to shape articles of clothing, handbags, etc.
The mitt below shows the sewn edge of the heel section joining the palm section. The sewn line is visible just above the crescent pad. A nice pocket is formed on this mitt. A pretty clever idea. Burt Rogers was one of the principals of Victor Sporting Goods who had years of glove making experience, having apprenticed in Gloversville, NY.

In 1909 Charles Burtt, as assignor to Draper Maynard, filed for a patent for a two piece face and back for a catchers mitt. His patent wasn't approved till 1912, two and a half years later. one has to wonder what the hang-up was. His frontal design was very similar to the Rogers patent above. The Burtt patent was unique only in the presenting of a two piece back section.
The 1914 D&M catalog below mentions only the two piece back as the new patented feature of model 698 "Professional Model". It is only my conjecture that there was some patent infringement with the earlier Rogers patent. The use of die press molding of the leather facing on catchers mitts to preform a pocket (patented in 1906) was becoming the norm and D&M may have decided to drop the two piece stitched face design as unnecessary.

here is a Victor mitt with a two piece face from a forum posting in July 2009. This mitt is unique in that two sections of the front are laced rather than sewn.

The Victor "Combination" mitt formed a pocket by segmenting the front and back of a catchers mitt into four seamed sections. The front seams were covered by a circular stitched reinforcement. A nice looking mitt

Ben Shibe, former co-owner of the Philadelphia Athletics, was a partner with A.J. Reach Co in the 1880's and was their leather expert. Shibe's patent of 1898 sought to improve the performance of a mitt by removing tapered sections of leather around the perimeter and sewing the face together creating a molded look.By 1906, John Gambles patent of the use of heat and water to mold leather around a die became the norm and Shibe's patent never took hold.

A half century passed and the influence of the Shibe patent reasserted itself in this Nokona basemitt circa 1940's that shows a segmented back used to curve the edge of the mitt forward. The 1940's were a formative time in the development of the curved finger design as seen in the OHara OK manufacturing and Wilson Kurv-Form patents.
To come back around full circle to the initial discussion of the two piece face mitt, a 1966 MacGregor design has me really intrigued by the use of a seam running longitudinally through the pocket. The design appears to add flexibility and in keeping with the original Victor patent, to create a deeper pocket. The seamed front section was reinforced by lacing running longitudinally on the back. It is a pretty cool looking mitt. This mitt is still for sale on ebay. Here is a link: http://shop.ebay.com/playokantiques/m.html?_dmd=1&_ipg=50&_sop=10&_rdc=1