Mid 50s Musial Top Line Trapper

[softball66]

Luck was with me Sunday as I dug out of the "dirt" this low throw premium Stan Musial endorsed T70RY Trapper 1b mitt. Nice shape, some silver left in some of the stamping. You have to love the Trapper black cloud patch. This was the very best of the Rawlings trappers from 1953-'55 selling for $24, then $26.50. And not bad to have one of the greatest players of all time stamped into this mitt. Musial was coming in from the outfield to play first base for the Cardinals in the 1950s.
We're indebted to Trapper Specialist Bob Duppstadt for a lot of detailed information on the great Rawlings Trappers (one of the most notable of basemitt innovations of all time) for a story that we ran in our newsletter in January 2000.
http://i146.photobucket.com/albums/r245 ... rfront.jpg

[softball66]

The black cloud patches Rawlings used in the 1940s and '50s are among the most distinctive of all time. This embroidered cloth embleme gives a great look to the gold leather and silver stamping of the mitt.
http://i146.photobucket.com/albums/r245 ... rpatch.jpg

[spedrunr]

hi joe, it's beauty. i don't recognize the modle number. top-o-the-line (pre HOH?)

ed

[softball66]

When Rawlings introduced the Trapper model in 1941, the best model was the T70, no endorser. In 1942 George McQuinn, the St. Louis Browns 1b man, had his name on the mitt and it stayed that way until 1951. That's the year the rules makers made Rawlings put the retainer strap on the end of the mitt and this greatly reduced the flexibility of the mitt. Rawlings took the T70 and incresed the size on the palm side and thus created the T70RY, that same year with McQuinn's name on it. Duppstadt found out that the "RY" stood for Rudy York, a Rawlings endorser. So maybe York had made that suggestion. McQuinn's name was dropped on the T70RY for Musial's in 1953 and that's what we have here. McQuinn's name stayed on the T70 (which Rawlings called it the "Original Trapper)
This mitt fits very tightly and awkwardly on my hand which is small. The web controller affects this tightness making the inside very snug. For a top- of- the-line mitt this feels very small and sit high on the hand.
It sold for $24.00 with the McQuinn T70 at $22.
If anyone wants me to snail mail a photo copy of Duppstadt's excellent article, I will be glad to do so.