Vintage Baseball Glove Forum

Hi there,

Occasionally, I see or hear someone say that he is "antiquing" a baseball glove.

What exactly does this mean? I like my gamers to look old-school! You know, from the days when players played baseball the way it was meant to be played.

I notice that when I oil the laces on a glove, they look good and old. Is this part of it?

Sometimes, when I see an old glove on eBay it has a dark brown spot in the pocket. I love this look. Is it from Neatsfoot oil? Precisely spat tobacco juice? I don't want to hurt a glove, but have some old, beat ones that I'd like to try out some antiquing techniques on if anyone would share some with me.

Thanks,

John in Ithaca, NY

I have an older Nike glove that I use to experiment with. Found it on top of a dugout baking in the Arizona sun for god knows how long. I used vasoline to soften it up and put a light coating of neatsfoot oil all over it and it went from a pale yellow color to a nice brown color almost instantly.

That glove has come so far that my son now prefers it as his gamer. I too love the look of a glove that looks like it's been used for decades. For me the oils work best for giving you that nice color but I'm not sure if it's the best thing to do if you want the glove to last a long time. Like anything involving your glove do it in moderation to avoid ading extra weight.

This is more glove restoration than conditioning, but I purchased a nice vintage wilson A2190 off eBay last year, the lacing was shot and in some cases missing altogether. I purchased an inexpensive old hutch first base mitt off eBay and harvested the lacing for my Wilson. I was very pleased with the result. The relacing in the Wilson looks authentic.

Where I'm going with this is, harvest lacing from an old glove with little or no value will give you a nice "antiquing" look and feel.

I usually take one of my sponges that I've cleaned the grime off a glove with and put a little fast orange on to moisten it up. I then work the dirty sponge onto the laces to "dirty" them up. This seems to work pretty well for me.

I'd love to know what Shoeless Joe uses on their gloves. I'd love to get the modified trap they have but I've read some reviews that said they don't hold up very well. I may get one anyway since I just love that look of 50 years of chewing tobacco spit soaked into the glove.