Vintage Baseball Glove Forum

I came across something I forgot I had today. These were the catalogs from the Sotheby's auction of The Barry Halper Collection of Baseball Memorabilia that was held Sept. 23 - 29, 1999. The catalogs are two books totaling 871 pages and 2,481 lots of memorabilia. Two great gloves were in the collection and I thought I would share the pictures.

First up is the Babe Ruth game worn Draper & Maynard Model G41. In the auction description Barry Halper that in an exhibition game in 1921 the Yankees played the Dodgers. In the last inning, Babe Ruth decided to move from right field to first base. He left this glove in right field by doing so. After the game the Halpers walked across the field and Barry saw the glove and dove for it. He was on the bootom of the pile for the glove and came up with it. The glove sold at the auction for $96,000.



Next is the last glove worn by Lou Gehrig in his final game on April 30, 1939. Halper got the glove from Babe Dahlgren, who replaced Gehrig at first. The glove is a Spalding. Dahlgren told Halper that Lou had worn the glove so much he had Ed Rainey, of Spalding, reface and reline the glove. The glove sold at the auction for $387,500.



Anybody have these in their collections?

Beautiful gloves and a great story. But Barry was born in 1939, so I don't think he was at the game in 1921. Maybe his dad or grandad picked up the glove?

As I reread the story. I missed the line that said the glove is accompanied by a fascinating letter written by the man who originally obtained the glove from Ruth. So it was this man, not a Halper that was at the bottom of the pile. The man had the glove for 58 years before Halper obtained it. So the auction was for th glove and the letter.

I really wanted the Ruth glove, but my bid ended up about $95,500 short. Wishing I would have gone a little higher now.

I wonder what the Ruth glove would sell for now - I bet a lot more.

Notice the cutout portion in the pocket of the Ruth glove. Now, when Ruth visited the D&M plant to select his glove (supposedly how the story goes),
he chose the glove being used by Honus Wagner, the G41, as he was a big admirer of Wagner. I recall seeing, years ago, a Wagner gamer, with the hole cut out in the palm. Maybe Ruth carried the Wagner idea a little further by removing part of his glove palm. Just a thought.
We know this was done, I believe, mainly by middle infielders and maybe passed along from Wagner. Others effecting this I remember were Bobby Wallace?, Dick Bartell and Leo Durocher. There were others.