Horace Partridge Sporting Goods

[mikesglove]

Horace Partridge was born in 1822 and spent his youth doing farm work and blacksmithing. He eventually found work as a traveling salesman of dry goods and groceries. He was very successful and decided to join his brother's retail store in Boston. A year later in 1848, Horace open his own establishment, H. Partridge Fancy Goods. He sold china, dolls, toys, musical instruments and games. He moved and expanded his business several times in the Boston area. By 1884, he took on his son Frank and son in law, Ben Hunt as partners. Benjamin Hunt was in charge of importing goods from Europe and Frank Partridge expanded the sporting goods department. It was at this time that sporting goods began to be advertised in their flyers and the company name was changed to Horace Partridge & Co.




Here is an advertisement showing a full range of athletic gear for sale.


Horace Partiridge & Co. was successful as a retailer of sporting goods in their day and their highly collectible equipment shows up regularly for sale today. The cloth patches alone are among my favorites.
Here is a small selection of uniform patches





Some of their baseball gloves were stylish and innovative like this full web buckle back model. This glove may have the circular palm stitching that is described in more detail below. The creases in the palm make it difficult to see all the stitching.


Here is a nice 1" web Partridge glove with the markings in the pocket still present. The white leather is still really pristine.


The back of the glove displays one of the nicest cloth patches and an innovative feature visible by the circular stitching of the palm. The 1918 Horace Partidge catalog states this feature allowed the player to cut away a circle in front palm section and still keep the surrounding padding intact. The Ball players of the day would sometimes cut away this section of their gloves to deepen the pocket. The 1918 catalog below describes this in the middle glove, model 8M. In 1931, the company was bought out by Wilson Sporting Goods.

[peterb69]

Great info, thanks as always.