Vintage Baseball Glove Forum

Went to the homeplace a couple of weekends ago and dug out my very first glove and thought I'd work on it for grins and giggles.

Its a MacGregor KHA Model Hank Aaron glove from my childhood. Was stiff as a board and dried out but after some FastOrange and Vasoline, it's actually looking o.k. The MacGregor and Model # are fairly well faded and Hank's autograph is in decent shape.

I didn't rub real hard on those for fear of really wearing them out. Not going to sell it but want to set it in my display cabinet for old times sake.

Anything I can do to get the lettering a little more visible or is it faded for good?

Thanks,
Bubdoggy in SC

On the faded lettering, I recommend doing very little to it.

Here's why:

1. Your efforts to revive it, may actually hurt it, and fade out more.

2. Don't try to darken the faded stamping with ink or foreign substance. It could look like you are pulling a fast one if you ever sell the glove.

3. Most collectors already know and appreciate a quality un-doctored glove.

This is strange but I've had a bit of success by putting a light coat of lanolin then putting the glove in a 120 degree oven for about 1 or 2 minutes then letting it cool for a few minutes then another light coat of vasaline. Let it sit for a day and sometimes the letters jump out at you.

After I cleaned it, the lettering showed up better but I thought that was about as good as it would get. You can't regenerate what's not there.

Thanks for the replies.

I've got a few beater gloves and I think I'm going to try this as well. I was thinking of taking a fine artist paint brush from a craft store and "painting" on some black leather dye to see how it worked.