Biddle Sporting Goods est. 1837

[mikesglove]

Robert and William Biddle founded Biddle Hardware in Philadelphia in 1837. This envelop from 1893 shows the Biddle Hardware Anvil logo and a bicycle ad.

By 1913 Their catalogs ran over 1000 pages and they carried a full range of hardware merchandise including sporting goods. In 1913, Biddle merged with another hardware supplier of Philadelphia, Supplee Hardware. Supplee-Biddle Hardware Inc. became one of the largest wholesale hardware jobbers east of the Mississippi.

This 1920's Biddle buckle web mitt is very rare especially with the intact cloth patch. This mitt needs a little restoration work. Something I planned to do about 10 years ago. Oh well. Supplee-Biddle Hardware later merged in 1964 with Tryon Sporting Goods and became known as Tryon-Supplee-Biddle Inc.

[mikesglove]

Here is another Biddle glove, the Biddle Special "Virgil Barnes" Model . it also is stamped "Professional Model". Looks to be a 1920-30's vintage.

[softball66]

Good work Mike. I can honestly say I'd not heard of Biddle before!
I would imagine a lot of what began and remained as hardware stores, added on sporting goods products as time went by in America.