Gloves, Endorsers from the 80's, and the Future

[Cowboy7130]

I know that most of the serious glovers on this forum have a number of gloves and a wealth of glove knowledge from the first half of the 20th century. I have also seen a great amount of discussion of more modern gloves, including contemporary models. I am not sure exactly when a glove becomes "vintage." I would suspect that the general rule of thumb is 20 years. If I am wrong, guys, I apologize.

With my "20-yr. rule" in mind, I was wondering which of the gloves and endorsers of the 1980's (one of my favorite baseball eras since it coincided with college, cable TV, and a re-kindling of my love for the game of baseball) would we be talking about in the future? Which models will become the Mickey Mantle and the Dazzy Vance collectibles of the near future?

[BretMan]

You must be about the same age as me, as the 80's were my good old college days, too. Feel free to use my simple formula for determining if a glove is "vintage".

If it's older than I am, it's a vintage glove. But if I'm older than the glove, it's obviously a modern one!

That's an interesting question. Maybe the answer is that no player endorsed gloves from that era will ever be as collectible as the older models.

One reason is that by the 80's most (or, most likely, all) of the endorsed models were cheap, imported gloves. I can't think of any made-in-the-USA player endorsed gloves from that time, and certainly not any of the high-end, top-of-the-line gloves that collectors prefer.

Couple that with the fact that gloves from that era were mass-produced and are in plentiful supply, so it will be a long, long time- if ever- that any of these gloves are considered as "rare".

This brings up something I have often wondered about. Knowing that some collectors focus on gloves endorsed by Hall of Fame players, when might the streak of HOF player endorsed gloves come to an end?

Gloves from this year's inductees, Ripken and Gwynn, are easy to find. But with the few player endorsed models issued nowadays, there would seem to be a time in the not-to-distant future when a player will be inducted into the Hall and no endorsed model of his glove will even exist!

[Cowboy7130]

You mean my Dale Murphy OR 520 may never be worth $200?!?!?!?

I have two Wilson gloves endorsed by George Brett, and two of the Dale Murphy OR 520's. My son has a Cal Ripken endorsed Nike glove and a Ken Griffey RBG 36.

I suspect that you are correct, sir. I suspect that the non-USA production gloves that bear the player endorsements will be so plentiful as to keep down the value of the gloves for decades to come. (Ken Griffey, Jr. seems to have slapped his name on every glove that Rawlings made over the last dozen years or so!) I also suspect that the quality of the gloves will be less than the traditional collector pieces that fetch the premium prices at auction and most of the applause in this forum.

However ... I think that the HOH Griffeys, Nolan Ryans, and maybe a few others, will be desirable ....

[BretMan]

Therein lies the rub- there are not any player-endorsed HOH, Pro Prefered or A2000 level gloves from that era!

The closest thing you'll find from the 80's would be some early XFG series gloves, endorsed by the likes of Reggie jackson, Dave Parker, Steve Carlton or Davey Lopes. While those gloves were well-made, they were not the highest level of quality gloves sold. These gloves generally retailed for 1/2 to 2/3 of the top-level professional models, with a corresponding drop in the quality of materials and construction.

The only exception might be some of the early-80's HOH catcher's mitts endorsed by Johnny Bench. But even those were not the most expensive models sold by Rawlings during those years.

[jwoody]

VINTAGE GLOVES 35 YEARS OR OLDER.....I PERFER THE LATE 40s TO EARLY 60s....

[softball66]

Thanks to David Seideman, the New York Times has covered the story of fewer names on baseball gloves syndrome of the past 10 to 20 years. It ran in the April 1, 2000 issue. It talks about how fewer and fewer names go on glove in past years. I have the article photocopied and can snail mail it out.