Can you date this glove?

[GiantsLover]

I bought an old Montgomery Ward glove on ebay and the owner thought it was made in the 1910s. Can anyone confirm this? I would really appreciate it! The glove can be viewed at: http://s1133.photobucket.com/albums/m599/ljskot/

[ebbets55]

Cool glove. I'll venture a guess despite the fact that you are a Giants fan.

I'd say 20's and even possibly early 30's. Youth gloves often used previous styles for a longer period of time. Although 1" webs were prevalent from 1908 on, most of them are probably 20's and a few of them are from the 30's. Mike, a little help here.

JD

[ScottWNJ]

Wow! This glove is on the move! I sold it as a 1910-1920s glove on August 5th to a NJ buyer. GiantsLover purchased it August 28, from a NJ seller with a different Ebay ID than the one I sold it to . I think that my buyer and your seller are the same person using two different Ebay ID's. Look at the pix. It's the same glove. Look at the wear mark on the middle finger and the black mark in the palm near the thumb.
Here is the glove I sold:

And hee is the glove GiantsLover purchased:


Scott

[GiantsLover]

I almost forgot. On the strap there is a stamped number that looks like 420 or A20 if that helps.

[GiantsLover]

Scott,
This is SO cool! It is the same glove and my glove's history is already becoming revealed! Would you mind sharing where you happened to get it and how you learned of its approximate age?

[vintagebrett]

I'm with JD on this one, I would say late 20's/early 30's

[Mr. Mitt]

Can't date any longer, married...

[ScottWNJ]

Hey GiantsLover, I wish I had some fantastic story to tell you about where I got the glove, but it was just an Ebay purchase. Perhaps I should have done my homework before selling it as I took a hit on this one. Paid $49 including shipping and only got $29 for it. (I was trying to raise some quick cash by selling a few items) Anyway, I purchased it in May 2010 from a seller in Rhode Island. That's all I can tell you. The original Ebay listing is long gone. Oh, and I think the number on the back might be 4209. It's a nice little glove, but I though it was an adult model since gloves usually were much smaller back then.

Scott

[GiantsLover]

Hi Scott,
Thanks for your response! It's okay that we don't know a lot about the glove's history. I am glad to have learned what I did!

[mikesglove]

Cool glove. I'll venture a guess despite the fact that you are a Giants fan.

I'd say 20's and even possibly early 30's. Youth gloves often used previous styles for a longer period of time. Although 1" webs were prevalent from 1908 on, most of them are probably 20's and a few of them are from the 30's. Mike, a little help here.

JD

That seems right to me. The 1" webs spanned a long period. I am not very familiar with Wards gloves and I might have just posted it like Scott did on ebay. I get fooled all the time on ebay with not knowing if a glove is full adult size or a smaller juvenile model. The seller will rarely post the dimensions of the glove and I guess it is on me for not asking. Sometime the piping or construction is a giveaway. Right now I am sitting on a glove that had leather piping and a cloth patch and I assumed it to be adult size and when I received it, I could tell by the small mailing box that something wasn't right. Luckily, it was inexpensive.

[GiantsLover]

Interesting! I am new to the vintage baseball glove arena. Mike, are you saying that most gloves with piping at the bottom are gloves made for kids with adult models having lacing on the bottom? That might explain why my MacGregor Mel Ott G122 from 1954 is small for a glove and has piping while my MacGregor-Goldsmith Mel Ott G18 from 1948 that I purchased later is bigger and has lacing.

[BretMan]

Are you saying that most gloves with piping at the bottom are gloves made for kids with adult models having lacing on the bottom?

That is often true, but not always. I believe that sewing that seam would make a glove less expensive to produce, with respect to materials and labor. Instead of having to punch holes for the lace, install metal grommets in the holes, purchase or make the lace, then have someone lace it up by hand...zip!...one pass through the sewing machine and it's finished.

That is right inline with what you see on most "child-sized" gloves- they're made as cheaply as possible. They would recycle older designs (which is why you see things like 1" sewn webs up into the 1930's, or split-fingers and tunnel webs into the 1950's, when those design features were generally a decade or two out of date), use thinner leather, partial liners, thin padding and cheap materials like cloth or vinyl.

And the same holds true today. You can buy a $25 Rawlings glove or a $300 Rawlings glove and see the same differences. Only "back in the day" it might have been more like a $2 Rawlings glove versus a $10 Rawlings glove!