Glove of the week: Nov 18 - 24

[burker72]

Drasher81 mentioned this glove while it was up for bid this last week. The bidding closed on the glove this past week, ending up at $520 with more than 20 bids. The light pen, rust colored stains, and lack of a clear manufacturer kept it from exceeding $1000. These minor bemishes aside, the glove is in spectacular condition otherwise, and the green piping on the white leather really makes it stand out in a crowd of crescent padded gloves. Congrats to the buyer...

As a possible topic for discussion, the seller said he has not tried to clean the glove. We have plenty of experts on this matter...do you try and clean a glove that is 100 years old? can the leather typically withstand a good cleaning? I'd be worried about doing more harm than good.

[drasher81]

Personally I don't even attempt to clean the gloves this old in my collection for fear of damaging them, I am afraid that I will darken the leather and it will lose the eye catching appeal that comes with a light colored glove.

[softball66]

Excellent question on gloves this old and this light color. Old gloves probably might need to be remoisturized to a degree (conditioned).
For gloves of this age, I've used Chelsea Leather Food a product of Caswell & CP ltd. Kettering, England which I understand has been used for decades safely in England to preserve leather.
But one needs to exercise great care in applying and in making sure the conditioner or if desired a cleaner, will not harm or stain the leather. One could experiment on these with more obscure parts of the glove if attempted.
One would be surprised but at one time, I heard, that the Hall of Fame was using neatsfoot oil to clean some of thier displayed and stored gloves. Definitely not a good idea! Hopefully they've switched to safer conditioners.
I've always maintained that on the more modern, less expensive gloves to use conditioners that are safe for the human skin and have done so but always caution on lighter colored leathers to test before using to avoid darkening or staining the leather.