Vintage Baseball Glove Forum

So I just ordered my made in the USA Nokona!
ordered this one...

Anyone already have one?

~D

Boy this glove combines all of the beauty, quality and playability of the great Nokonas. I've played with a Nokona Buffalo Leather AMG650 for about three years. It was a little spongy feeling at first but I've got that broken down now. It was one of the first Buffalo leather gloves produced at Nokona (doesn't even have the Bison emblem in it) and I couldn't wait to get one.
The Buffalo leather sure gets my recommendation and I'm a big fan of the trap-eze style glove.

My son's first nice glove I bought him:

Schoooo-hoo-hoo-hoo-WEET gloves! I just decided what I am going to spend some of my economic stimulus package windfall on ... a new Nokona!

Woo, it came in the mail today. Here's some pics.



Little comparison:
sitting next to my Mizuno GCP51


~D

That is an absolutely beautiful glove man! I have a Nokona AMG650CW that my wife surprised me with last year at Christmas. I have always, always, ALWAYS wanted a Nokona glove and I absolutely love everything about it. In all the time I've been involved in baseball (going on 50 years now), I have never ever had any glove on my hand that felt like a Nokona. As soon as you slip your hand into it and the leather warms, it just molds to your hand like another skin. Just an incredible feeling. I will take my glove to my grave with me. Wherever I take it, the glove is never out of my sight. An absolutely awesome display of superior American workmanship. The Wilson A2000's are very well made, as are the HOH, and all of the other gloves (all made outside the USA) are nice gloves, but I wouldn't trade my Nokona for any one of them. Good luck with your new glove, and enjoy breaking it in.

Seven or eight years ago, when I heard Nocona was gonna produce a Buffalo leather glove, I got one of the very first AMG650BFs (notice before the buffalo stamping was made) and maybe one of first buffalo leather gloves produced in the states. I was amazed and delighted with the feel of the glove and got another for a friend. Only downside was that leather felt spongy which would cause the ball to bounce out sometime. But it broke in the way the old time gloves did, soft, pliable and I LOVE mine. Haven't used it that much in senior softball as the 14" AMG400K still works, but it's my backup.
An expensive glove but well worth the price of admission to the hand.
[img][img]http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg240/popcorkhill/Photo10.jpg[/img][/img]

Had to include photos of my glove. I've had my Nokona buffalo AMG175BF (personalized with my name on it) for a few years now and I love it dearly. Now, if only I played as well as it deserves...

Your glove is very nice, Staci.

Looks like the thumb and pinky finger loops have been cut or trimmed. I am wondering why?
Appearances?
Functionality?

I have always wondered the reasons.

Thanks in advance.

-GG

Just appearance, my personal preference. No functional reason.

So I thought I would come back and say that I really like the glove...or at least the idea of the glove. The leather is soft and strong, but the dynamics of the glove seem off. The palm seems to big and you can never quite catch a ball securely and comfortably. The glove is extremely loose and the leather inside soooo smoooth that you have to hold on for dear life so that glove does not fly off your hand. *sigh* Oh well, I'll still keep it.
~D

Suggestion:

You probably have already considered this idea; Try wearing a batting glove on your glove hand to serve as an "extra" liner. It might just fill the void between your hand and the glove's internal liner.

Also, adjusting the thumb and pinky loops may give you that custom fit.

GloveGypsy wrote:Suggestion:

You probably have already considered this idea; Try wearing a batting glove on your glove hand to serve as an "extra" liner. It might just fill the void between your hand and the glove's internal liner.

Also, adjusting the thumb and pinky loops may give you that custom fit.

I've never tried wearing a batting glove with it as that is just not my style. But I'll give it a try. Also, the thumb and pinky loops are really slippery and you have to retighten every few catches. On a good note, I'm going to take my car down to Nogales and have someone redo my car interior with buffalo hide....*dreaming*
~D

TUCRACMAN wrote:So I thought I would come back and say that I really like the glove...or at least the idea of the glove. The leather is soft and strong, but the dynamics of the glove seem off. The palm seems to big and you can never quite catch a ball securely and comfortably. The glove is extremely loose and the leather inside soooo smoooth that you have to hold on for dear life so that glove does not fly off your hand. *sigh* Oh well, I'll still keep it.
~D

I recently bought an 11" all-buffalo nokona (AMG100) for my son and I was pretty down on it for the reasons you state. It breaks in fast -- in a couple of weeks the spongy feel and the overly slippery effects (inside and out) fade -- however, compared to the walnut and even buckaroo combo leather the buffalo is so soft and floppy that, when I used it, I felt as if I was wearing a quasi-structured neoprene bag of some sort. I wanted to send it back when we got it but I couldn't pry it away from him. He does fine with it and loves it to death but I suspect that after the 'honeymoon' is over he'll migrate back to using another, firmer glove and I can ebay this one off

Or use it as a batting glove

Buffalo hide has a few inherent problems:

Buffalo is usually not as thick as cowhide.

Buffalo has loose fiber structure and that is why you see the puffiness of the leather. Also, when the fibers become loose, like you are explaining, the tensile strength decreases.

The buffalo meatpacking industry is not as automated as the beef industry so you get a lot more butcher cuts that the glove manufacturer must work around. Butcher cuts are small slices in the backside of the leather. This not only creates more waste but the clicker operators are bound to miss some of the butcher cuts and they wind up in the finished glove.