Newbie with a Winston Professional and Some Questions

[mike3216]

Hello, I'm new here and know little or nothing about vintage baseball gloves. Baseball was my sport up until high school, and I still love the game. I frequent thrift shops, and I had never seen a vintage glove at one until yesterday. I had to buy it (for $.99). I would love to know a little about it. It is a Winston Professional Model. There isn't a lot of information available online for this glove. From what little I know, I'm guessing late 1940s??? I always thought that gloves were endorsed by one player, but this one has one "main" signature and three smaller, lighter signatures. The main signature appears to be "Carter", but the only player I've found that might match the time frame is Blackie Carter, and the signature does not match that. Can anybody tell me anything about this glove? Thanks in advance.
Mike

Note: The images are cut off in the post, but if you click on the pictures, you get the full version.


img


pc screenshot


20mb image hosting


post a picture


image sharing sites

[vintagebrett]

The glove is more of a 1950's early 1960's model than 1940's. The signatures are not the endorsement - they appear to be signed onto the glove at some point in time. Maybe a previous owner took it to a ballgame and had some players sign it? I'm not good at deciphering autographs but maybe they were minor league players?? Looks like the maker, WInston, was going for a full on knock off of Wilson gloves at this time - the font they used for their branding is almost identical. Hope that helps a bit

[BretMan]

From the time that companies started making baseball gloves and up through the 1950's, sporting goods manufacturing was almost exclusively an American venture. By the early 1960's that had changed. Overseas manufacturing proliferated and imported gloves began flooding our market.

Winston was one of the dozens of "off brands" made overseas and shipped to the U.S.. While a nearly complete history of the major companies can be found (Rawlings, Wilson, Spalding, McGregor), so many of these offshore makers came and went that little historical information exists for them.

By the 70's there was some shakeout. To compete, the American companies began producing their own gloves overseas. Most of the small foreign brands died off, never to be heard from again.

While not being especially collectible, the Winston glove does offer a good glimpse into state-of-the-art glove technology, circa 1960. And, it's a survivor, having lasted 50-plus years. It caught your eye and got you interested in vintage baseball gloves, so there's certainly some value to that!

[mike3216]

Thanks for the replies. They were very helpful. I was surprised that this could be as late as the 1960s, because when I started playing little league (in 1972 ), gloves looked a lot more like they do today. That decade must have been a time of major change.

[Number9]

It's funny, and sad, that there was such a blatant attempt to rip off the Wilson identity with the Winston logo. The W is very close, as is the overall typography in the logo. Someone reached out to me a few weeks ago about a Trylon glove. I was sure he was reading Tryon incorrectly. Sure enough, an import.

[mikesglove]

It's funny, and sad, that there was such a blatant attempt to rip off the Wilson identity with the Winston logo. The W is very close, as is the overall typography in the logo. Someone reached out to me a few weeks ago about a Trylon glove. I was sure he was reading Tryon incorrectly. Sure enough, an import.

Trylon was a trademark of the Thrifty Drug Corporation when they began to diversify into sporting goods circa 1959. Thrifty acquired Big 5 Sporting Goods in 1972.