Vintage Baseball Glove Forum

February is the month for g"lovers". Well, me for one. I was fortunate to come across this square top Rawlings basemitt at a local antique store. It was with 3 other gloves (all were beaters) and a softball mask. The mitt was by far the dirtiest glove I've cleaned so far!! The lining is great and thanks to JD's wonderful site, I was able to see the model/ endorser. The mitt is a Jim Bottomley model. The mitt still has the 1922 patent and I can make out the script J and some scribbles for the last name. Still a great find nonetheless. I provided a before and after picture of the basemitt. I found it funny that once I bought it what a fuss the older ladies working the counter made over it. They were so interested in it and were so amazed that people collected such things. Of course I had to ask if their husbands had any old ball equipment at home they wanted to sell. No dice though. I will post my other finds on my site next week.

http://hometown.aol.com/rickybulldog/page1.html

Awesome find!

rickybulldog,

How do you clean up your finds so nice?

Rookie

Check out the "Glove Conditioning" and "Glove Restoration" sections of the forum. There are tons of tip for getting your old leather back into shape.

I use a combination of things that I got from glovers (that I have a huge amount of respect for) over the years.

For general cleaning: I use the white Fiebings saddle soap suggested by Rob "Glovecrazy" Mucha for darker leather gloves. I use the orange soap for the more modern gloves. The guy at Tandy Leather says there's no difference between the two, but I use both.

For deep cleaning and if I'm tired: I'll use the Fast Orange that Brett suggested. It does dry the gloves out quickly though almost like rubbing alcohol.

For the final touch up. I use what Robbie Leonhardi (theluckydogkind) uses. I've always loved the gloves I got from him and had to ask. He uses the Doc Martin leather Balm that comes with the shoes. It gives a great sheen and I like the smell. Hope this is helpful!!

And for suede gloves I use the suede eraser!!!

Those are great before and after photos......nice job of cleaning that glove up!