Vintage Baseball Glove Forum

Charles W. Jencks & Bros. were manufacturers of fancy paper and wood boxes. They were located in Providence RI. In the mid 1870's they entered the burgeoning baseball equipment business under the name "American Baseball Company".the excerpt above from "Sport in America".
The 1890's catchers mitt below was from the American Baseball Company. They were still in business in 1906 but that is the latest I could trace them. it really is a great looking mitt and went for $404 on ebay.

It seems that the mitt above was not manufactured by the American Baseball Co. in Providence RI. The 1893 Simmons Hardware catalog advertises a line of gloves and mitts by the "American Mitten Company" of St. Louis. The logo from the catalog matches that of the mitt from ebay. I couldn't find any information about the American Mitten Co. They may have been a house brand of Simmons Hardware for a time.

I saw that last night too. Interestingly, there is a page showing American Base Ball Company baseballs. It looks like a Spalding ad with the name changed.

Here is a picture William picked up from the Simmons catalog regarding the baseballs. I didn't look through all the pages of the ebay listing, just the gloves and I missed the "American Baseball Co." ad. That is one thing I like about looking through these old ads and catalogs. It is interesting finding companies that are long gone and mostly forgotten.

From a 1901 Simmons catalog. Pegamoid was a gelatinous varnish like concoction developed in Germany in the 1890's. Applied to fabric, the Pegamoid could leave a leather like waterproof coating. This process was widely used till our beloved vinyl Naugahyde was developed if the 1940's-50's. I bet many of the early oil cloth textured mitts on JD's site are actually synthetic Pegamoid leather.



Note the "Royal Manufacturing Co." logo, another Simmons trademark