Meeting a Fellow Collector

[BretMan]

I just had the opportunity to meet a fellow collector who lives right across town from me whom I had never met before.

A local youth baseball and softball league where I umpire games is celebrating it's 60th anniversay this year. It's a huge program with 1500 kids signed up this summer and nearly total 100 teams in various age groups. As part of their celebration, this weekend they had a sort of "fan fest" with games, food and family activities. Knowing that I collect vintage gloves, I was asked to set up a display.

I gathered about fifty gloves and grouped them generally into decades, to kind of show their evolution. I also made sure that I had a group of gloves that people could touch, feel and try on, which sparked a lot of interest. Sprinkled in were a few bats, catcher's masks and other gear, just to "spice it up" a bit. As mainly a glove collector, I don't really have a whole lot in the way of other equipment.

They had mentioned to me that another collector was going to be there too- a gentleman that is a member of a local vintage baseball group that plays actual games in period uniforms using period rules (the period being roughly the civil was era).

This gentleman's display was most impressive! Besides some very early gloves, he had brought things like mushroom knob and wagon tongue bats, lemon peel baseballs and sun collar uniforms.

Naturally, we had a lot to talk about. The funny thing was that as we talked and I looked at his business card, his unique email address seemed to ring a bell. As it turns out, nearly ten years ago I had purchased a big box of gloves and other memorabilia from him off of eBay!

He does have a website with photos of his wonderful display and I would like to share it with you. It's worth a look!

http://www.vintagebaseballcollector.com

[deebro041]

That's wild Brett that you guys lived so close and have never met. I was looking at his website last night, what an incredible collection! I'm not sure i could sleep at night with a collection like that.(i would be too excited) Thanks for the great story Dan

[vintagebrett]

Thanks for sharing. It's always fun to check out other people's collections - there is lots of cool stuff out there! He has some amazing uniforms. That being said, I think the fingerless is just a kids glove with the finger tops cut off.

[BretMan]

He didn't have that fingerless glove in his display at the fan fest, or I would have definitely looked it over an quizzed him about it.

This was kind of funny. He did have a crusty looking, dirty smashed flat and worn out Rawlings Doak H-model on display. I asked him if he knew what it was, since all of the stampings were gone from it. He said he wasn't sure. So I walked over to my display where I had one that I'd cleaned up, with pretty silver in all the stampings, soft pliable leather, that just melts on your hand and is 100% game ready. He got a kick out of that!

[mikesglove]

I wonder if anyone knows who the manufacturer tag was on his workmans glove. it looks like an "R" overlaying an "M". It may be just the stylized initials of the owner of the glove done with a pen. I'm not really sure.

[BretMan]

That particular glove was there and I did have a chance to hold it in my hands and examine it closely. The letters are embroidered. I commented that the tag had me stumped.