1930's Reach base mitt
Posted: May 4th, 2012, 3:21 pmI don't collect many base mitts, just not my thing. i liked this one for the patented wrist strap, invented by Edwin Till in 1930. I have a catchers mitt with the same design. Not a real popular invention and it only lasted a couple of years. You can find them on Spalding, Reach and Wright & Ditson mitts of that era.
The mitt looked well used and the darkening of the leather seemed to indicate a lot of grime built up over the years. The cloth patch looked iffy. The green gunk around the grommets looked bad even in the picture and it was worse in person. It had spread inside the mitt. I lucked out in one respect and the interior leather was especially nice.
The front leather was really dirty and the original stamping was mostly worn away except for a faint Reach logo.
I had to carefully undo all the perimeter lacing to get inside the mitt to clean up the green gunk. I had to use a dental pick and my mini vacuum! It was nasty. I did not break the lacing as I relaced the mitt and got it back together in one piece. I used Go-Jo waterless hand cleaner with pumice on the dark, dirty areas of the front and back and it cut through the top layer of grime really well. I followed that with Kiwi saddle soap, a tooth brush and clean rag over the entire mitt. That softened the mitt and removed a lot of the remaining grime. After the mitt dried out a little I spread Vaseline over small areas and cleaned off more of the grime with a soft rag. It was amazing after the Go-Jo and Kiwi treatment how well the Vaseline worked as a final cleaner. I used my "Hide Bracer" conditioner to give the mitt a little shine at the end.
The silver grommets look super now. I don't collect glove/mitts with worn off cloth patches. Pretty much ruins it for me. They are really fragile and when they are nice it is like the icing on a cake.
One added bonus to the mitt was the design of the "trap" style webbing using the four grommets on the thumb. Reach touted this design in the 1930's. I like how the former owner kind of did his thing with the intertwining of the web lacing so I left it that way.
The last two pictures will blow you away. It doesn't look like it could possibly be the same mitt. The grime was really caked on the patch. I have ruined my share in cleaning cloth patches because they are fragile and this one didn't look like it would clean easily. I used a watered down mixture of saddle soap and about 30 Q-Tips. One trick is to start really lightly and watch for the tell tale darkening of the Q-Tip end. I was super careful and would let the patch dry before I started in again.
The mitt looked well used and the darkening of the leather seemed to indicate a lot of grime built up over the years. The cloth patch looked iffy. The green gunk around the grommets looked bad even in the picture and it was worse in person. It had spread inside the mitt. I lucked out in one respect and the interior leather was especially nice.
The front leather was really dirty and the original stamping was mostly worn away except for a faint Reach logo.
I had to carefully undo all the perimeter lacing to get inside the mitt to clean up the green gunk. I had to use a dental pick and my mini vacuum! It was nasty. I did not break the lacing as I relaced the mitt and got it back together in one piece. I used Go-Jo waterless hand cleaner with pumice on the dark, dirty areas of the front and back and it cut through the top layer of grime really well. I followed that with Kiwi saddle soap, a tooth brush and clean rag over the entire mitt. That softened the mitt and removed a lot of the remaining grime. After the mitt dried out a little I spread Vaseline over small areas and cleaned off more of the grime with a soft rag. It was amazing after the Go-Jo and Kiwi treatment how well the Vaseline worked as a final cleaner. I used my "Hide Bracer" conditioner to give the mitt a little shine at the end.
The silver grommets look super now. I don't collect glove/mitts with worn off cloth patches. Pretty much ruins it for me. They are really fragile and when they are nice it is like the icing on a cake.
One added bonus to the mitt was the design of the "trap" style webbing using the four grommets on the thumb. Reach touted this design in the 1930's. I like how the former owner kind of did his thing with the intertwining of the web lacing so I left it that way.
The last two pictures will blow you away. It doesn't look like it could possibly be the same mitt. The grime was really caked on the patch. I have ruined my share in cleaning cloth patches because they are fragile and this one didn't look like it would clean easily. I used a watered down mixture of saddle soap and about 30 Q-Tips. One trick is to start really lightly and watch for the tell tale darkening of the Q-Tip end. I was super careful and would let the patch dry before I started in again.