H-webs!

[okdoak]

I probably don't have any information on them that everyone doesn't already know, but those H-web gloves from the 1940s have always been favorites of mine. I am guessing that Wilson made the earliest one in the late 1930s with a solid H shaped piece for the web as shown in this patent drawing:



The patent that pertains to that drawing actually was not for the web, but for a method of curving the fingers. As far as I know, there isn't a specific patent for the H-web. Looks like it was covered by this one from 1927 by Western-Wilson:



All the big glove makers had a version of the H-web in the 40s. Here is Goldsmith's from 1940:



Rawlings from 1941 (their rolled lace RR was none too shabby also):



Wilson from the same year:



Dom DiMaggio with a cool looking one:



I wonder if he changed that glove from a rolled lace web after it was banned. Looks like there were enough grommets for that style. He must have liked that H-web style though, because he still used it after the full barrel webs were introduced. Ted Williams has a later triple tunnel Wilson also. Guessing late 1940s or early 1950s?



Red Schoendienst stayed with an H-web (and he was a rolled lace guy also) long after the full barrel web became popular, too. Here is his gamer from 1956, though I am always a little leery about whether game gloves actually came from the specified year:



Marty Marion with his on a very cool 1949 Bowman:



Another view from 1951:



Rawlings brought the H-web back later in the 1960s and Brooks Robinson did some amazing things with the ones he had. Their store model Stan Musial SM6 H-web seems to have been popular with kids of that time. I know that I wanted one back then. Mickey Mantle had his version with a rolled lace connecter. Anybody remember this one?



Well, that's all I know about them. They are really common and easy to find, but to quote Van Halen; "I love 'em! I need 'em! Can't get enough..."

[mikesglove]

I have also been curious about the H-webs. This close-up of a 1940's Rawlings Doak webbing shows the licensed patent stamp of Wilson-Western as Greg mentioned.

[softball66]

I always had trouble calling it an "H" web because you have to look at the glove sideways to see the "H". Nevertheless. It was a "filler" web until the full "barrel" web took its place. The H web has remained popular even today in the smaller modern gloves . The larger ones usual have double vertical and horizontal webs.
For those of you who have the catalog source book, look at the back cover where Dom DiMaggio is shown springing into the air with his greatly loosened "H" web. The "little professor" liked that looseness trap feel which held onto the tough catch balls a little better.
Web man "Stockbuddy" who kows about webs, needs to weigh in on this one.

[okdoak]

Joe, the back cover of my copy is long gone but I remember that terrific photo. Dom must have gotten the maximum possible reach from that web. You can see that it extended past the fingers in this picture.

[stockbuddy]

Hi Guys,

Ah, the webs, my favorite part of the old gloves. "H" webs or "I" webs as some might call them, (depending on your viewpoint as you look at the glove) come in many variations.

Actually, finding so many differnt sytles of different webs like the "H" webs when I started collecting gloves is what I think caused my first strong attraction to gloves and caused me to have the glove bug.

Joe, I relooked at your back cover on your 2007 source book. Yep, that lace is broken through on that h web, but hopefully the ball did not push through the trap area when he tried to snag the ball.

OK, my 2 cents worth on the H webs. The best resource for seeing who seemed to show up with the first H webs in production would likely be from the pictures shown in the sales catalogs, but in my mind to label that web as an "H" or "I" web I used the criteria that the web needed to took like the letter H or I configuration. Hope that makes sense. Thus, the 1927 glove patent with a single horizontal tunnel between the thumb and index finger pictured in the patent picture did not meet my classification of an "H" or "I" web. It was simply a single tunnel web. Once the web took on the "H" or "l" look I then would label the web as suchand include with my H or I webs.

It sure seems like the vintage H or I webs were introduced in the late 30's and early 40's and boy did Rawlings seem to crank them out on the Doak glove. LOL

I identified the following as meeting my H web criteria in my collection.

1.Doak H web as pictured in the Doak glove on this thread

2. H web with fancy lacing threaded through the horizontal sections as found in my Goldsmith glove endorsed by Elmer Riddle

3. Solid one piece H web as shown in the patent on this thread (mine was endorsed by Pete Reiser on a Wasco glove)

4. H web with the vertical strap in the shape of a trapazoid and made by Globe and endorsed by Warren Spahn

5. H web with the vertical strap that joins the top and bottom of the H or I being rolled up in a tube formation (Mine was made by Ken-Wel)


I may be missing another H web or two but the above seems to capture the biggest percentage of H or I webs I have seen over the years.

I did not count the Red Rolfe rolled lace web as an H or I web as it loses the configuration of forming the letter H or letter I. Same goes for the tree web on my Stall and Dean glove and a few other gloves that just did not come close enough to fit the true H or I web shape.

Greg, I took a close look at that glove you thought might have the potential of being a rolled lace web and compared the grommet formation to the Red Rolfe rolled lace in my collection. The grommets do seem to look like they have that possibility. 5 grommets up the thumb and the last grommet right on the thumb tip area. Who knows that may have been a rolled web that was later transitioned to an H web. LOL

Well guys that is my 2 cents worth on the H webs. LOL

Dave