Vintage Baseball Glove Forum

I have had a recent run of good fortune finding Military model gloves. Today I received a Army model Wilson 615 glove. Man, is this thing filthy! Gonna take a while to clean this one up, but the stampings appear strong and the glove looks to be in excellent shape, with no tears, cracks, or ink. I see a lot of toothbrush time in my future.

This glove has a small cloth tag with a number "1" on it sewn where the wrist strap is sewn to the glove. Any ideas? (Can't get a decent photo of it)

After today's cleaning....

Looking good!!

Nice job on the glove. Makes it worth the effort when the color and markings on the leather come back. The cloth tag you mention may be an inspection tag if it is located under the wrist strap at the point of wrist strap attachment. In your case, Inspector #1 approved your glove for shipment. I have quite a few gloves with an inspection tag.

Finished product. Lacing the pocket factory style is a real pain. I am quite happy with how this one turned out.

lacing the web factory style is difficult with a straight needle. The grommets are so close together that the straight needle seems to bind up. I have also had a grommet tear out of the leather doing it this way, not good. I have used a large curved needle and shaved the end of the lacing to fit in the eye. That works pretty well. Most times I have made my own needle with a sturdy yet flexible wire that I will crimp over the end of the lacing and feed through the grommets. The beauty of it is that it can be bent and shaped to form to the finger stall a bit more and not tweak the grommets. I keep needle nose pliers handy to pull it through. This is what I use most on my 30's-50's webs. Your glove looks great. I like the markings on the front.