Vintage Baseball Glove Forum

I was reading the ads that are posted above and was noticing the different logos that Ken-Wel used while located in Gloversville. None of these were used in the New Hartford/Utica years, as the printed logos and the patches became much simpler. It is like the company lost it's character when it moved.

Ken

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That is a interesting observation about the cloth patches. When I was collecting KenWel, I only had one glove with the early logo. they were hard to find in decent shape. I had a number of gloves with the "scroll" design The later design, like you say, was quite different from the first two. The stylized script was eye catching and more modern looking than the first two.
When they started making the buckle back models like the 560 Pro and centered the patch, to me it was a thing of beauty.

Ferris Fain won back to back AL batting titles in 1951 & 1952. The VBG Catalog Source Book indicates (1938) he was endorsed by Ken-Wel (Kennedy Sporting Goods). See Kennedy first baseman mitt. Baseball Players of the 1950's by Rich Marzaai writes "Fain was arguably the best defensive first baseman of his era (47-55)." A character, he was involved in fights both on the field and with the law.

See pic of Ken-Wel five finger, no endorsement. Laabel Ken-Wel Gloversville Sporting Goods NY USA, also nice button

The full web KenWel is a real nice glove! I would hold on to that one. Beautiful early cloth patch and from what I can see a nice logo button.

The cloth patch on the latest photo is of the type I was discussing earlier that I think are really cool. The later plain script-style Ken-Wel patch on the glove three photos back just doesn't have the same aura for me.

Ken

Allen Kennedy moved to Florida in 1952 after selling the Ken-Wel name and leasing the Utica factory to Lawrence Kennedy(no relation). Kennedy Sporting Goods lasted till 1960.



It has been noted the Lawrence Kennedy would freely manufacture gloves under the Ken-Wel brand from time to time. The glove below is an interesting mash-up. It is a Ken-Wel "Preacher Roe" model 579 with a Ken-Wel button and a green and gold cloth patch. It recently sold on ebay for under $30




Below is a "Lou Brissie" model 569 with a better looking green and gold Ken-Wel patch

A KenWel glove recently sold on ebay may be the very elusive first generation of the "Dazzy Vance" style glove. Most Vance gloves have the diagonal seams on the back of the finger stalls. Below is an ad for a "Vance" glove that has the "peaked" back seams only found on the very early models.




The glove below is possibly a first one found and exceedingly rare.

Yes your right, I picked up that HP dazzy to go in my collection of early New England makers, love it, gotta say it's better than I even thought it was going to be, along with the ken wel dazzy junior I picked up with it, both are two of the nicest, softest, barely used gloves I have, they're great examples. I also have another dazzy HP that came out of the Graham collection, and it does have the diagonal seems and dv tag!! I believe your correct this is the earliest version and very rare indeed. There's a slight bit of dirt in the palm and what looks to me like some markings, maybe with a light cleaning and someone with more knowledge could/can make it out for sure, have to get back to you on that.

Sorry having trouble uploading the photos comparing the two, says the image is larger than the allowable 256kib, im not real tech savoy so guess can't help out with this one, but I do have another HP dazzy that's just about the exact same thing except the seems aren't in a peaked fashion, as you pointed out, and there is an extra dv tag. But I don't believe this new one I just picked up on eBay ever had the additional tag, probably before they started adding that feature. I have an iPhone and take pics using that, if anyone has info on how I can upload the pics to this forum I will.

Here are a couple of pictures from Eric of the two Vance style gloves. The bottom one looks like a nice big ole glove.



A close-up of the diagonal seams of the later Vance models. My take is the diagonal seam placement staggered the meeting points on the center finger stall seam.
All in all a better and ad"vance"d design.

Yeah, hard to see the seams well, probably several other example on JDs site that show the diagonal seems a lot more clearly. But those two have the same HP tag, different buttons, the first one has the leaf design on it, I think maybe a Bon Tober button, and the peaked seams has the Ken-Wel button. The diagonal seams may be more advanced and a better design, but those peaked seams look purrrdy!!!

Does anyone have, or have leads to, an original ad of this peaked seams dazzy? I'd like to have one to display with the glove since it seems to be a pretty rare variation of a DV. Please contact me if so, and thanks Mike for helping with the pics, hope those helped explain the seam variation you were trying to describe.

Ken-Wel experimented with different lacing patterns in the 1930's. One such glove was this "Alex Kampouris" model. The laced wrist strap is reminiscent of D&M gloves and mitts of the period but what really differentiates the Kampouris glove is the thumb/forefinger lacing.



This wasn't a Bert Rogers design but was based on a little used William Barrett patent of 1925 for George Reach, President of A.J. Reach Co. There are some pretty zany combinations illustrated.

Dear "MikesGlove"

Wished to genuinely thank you for taking time to create these outstanding posts on past glove companies..etc.

Invaluable resources and genuinely appreciated.
I have been trying to research and digest all I can and have not found such info elsewhere.

Kind regards
D