They say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Perhaps, accordingly, value is in the heart of the owner.
When I was coaching several years ago I was helping to clean out a storage shed behind the girls' softball field. We stored football dummies in there, too, during the season, since it was close to our practice field. That summer, we had huge problem with fire ants all over our athletics fields, but it was NOTHING compared to what I found beneath some rotting old batting cage netting. There was a fire ant mound about the size of a watermelon in one corner, and I was ready to call the exterminator when I noticed some leather laced rivets peeking out of one corner of the anthill. Well, I carefully fished out a Rawlings OR 520 Dale Murphy endorsed glove, and after enthusiastically whacking it against the side of the building to dislodge any ants who were residing in the glove, I inspected it a little more carefully. Miraculously, the leather was in very good shape, although very dry, and very faded, as if the glove had resided in the back of someone's pickup truck for months and months in the West Texas summer sun. And the lacings were intact, the cloth labels were pristine ... and then I saw our head cheerleader's name in very faded ink on the thumb, just underneath her dad's name. Well, this glove had been living in this shed for a couple of years, at least, so I knew the cheerleader had a new glove. I tried to return it to her when school started in the fall, but she had forgotten all about it. She told me she had used it in pee-wee softball. She told me to keep it, but I told her to check with her dad. Well, her dad had bought himself several new softball gloves since then, and didn't want the glove, either. So I did keep it, on top of my locker in the fieldhouse. I hadn't even tried it on yet!
The following baseball season, the first day of practice, I'm the jv coach, and I forgot my favorite Wilson George Brett glove. Dang it ... well, there is that old glove on top of my locker, might as well try it ... it fit my hand beautifully, the inside was smooth and supple, and though the leather was dry, it was not stiff at all. I took it home after playing catch with it that day, after trying to teach freshmen how to throw and catch. I used saddle soap and a toothbrush and cleaned it up. The next day, I used some leather lotion that my wife had bought to use on a leather coat. The glove gleamed like new, though still faded. Since then I have replaced several loose laces, cleaned and vaselined it, and it is now my favorite glove. The leather still looks faded, almost a light tan color similar to the modern Gold Glove models, though the tags look as bright as ever.
I know that my Rawlings OR520 Dale Murphy glove is not a collectible type glove. But ol' Dale was my favorite player in the 80's, and this glove just fits me perfectly! I feel like I rescued it! No, I didn't steal it, or buy it, but I am glad I tried to do the right thing and give it back first. So far, it is my favorite piece of vintage leather.
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About 10 years ago my favorite uncle passed away, and left me as executor of his estate and the beneficiary of his will. He was an old bachelor, and had no children of his own, though I think he may have thought of me as a son he didn't have to clothe and feed!
Well, this old bachelor uncle of mine had been a college football player in the late 1950's, but as it turns out, as I went through several rooms of closets and trunks, I discovered that he had played 'town ball,' too! I found an old wool uniform in dark red with cream colored raglan sleeves, with felt letters sewn on the front to represent the sponsor of the team. Underneath it I found two ball gloves from the 1930's. One was virtually disintegrating as I picked it up. Now that I know what I was looking at, it was a split-finger, 1" web, with a button back. The other was a Hurricane glove, in a kind of peachy-orange color, and it was in pretty good shape. I had never heard of Hurricane gloves at the time. I remember thinking that it was pretty small, but then again, most gloves of that era are small compared to the modern fielder's gloves. I thought they both were pretty cool, so I put both gloves and the uniform back in the trunk and carried them to my dad. My dad had been pretty broken up about losing his kid brother to cancer, so he wanted to keep most of the stuff there at his house, and not let me take it home. Sentimental reasons, obviously. But now that I know so much more about vintage gloves, I want to go out and dig through the old trunk again and find out more about those two gloves. And, if they are worth photographing, I can even post pics, now. I am no longer a low-tech redneck!
Yes, I still have my first glove.
by Bravosin99 » July 27th, 2007, 5:10 pm 
....Although it was a fellow friend of ours who got the deal so it wasn't so bad...He got a Rawlings HOH Stan Musial for $20!! lol now thats a deal