Hi, dacton. Welcome to the forum! I'll see if I can answer some of your questions.
There are some excellent reference books that I consider essential for anyone interested in the glove collecting hobby.
"The Vintage Baseball Glove Catalog Source Book" compiles catalog data from hundreds of sporting good catalogs. With this book you can identify and date almost any glove you'll ever find. The book lists model numbers, dates and original retail prices for thousands of gloves, from the big companies- Rawlings, Wilson, Spalding, etc.- to many of the more obscure ones.
"The Vintage Baseball Glove Pocket Price Guide" is a small booklet jammed full of collecting information. Besides prices for thousands of player-endorsed gloves, there is information on grading, supply and demand, glove rarity, non-endorsed gloves and other information relative to the hobby.
Both can be found here:
The Glove Collector
The fine gentleman that publishes these guides is a frequent poster here under the user name "softball66".
This forum is also a great resource to glove collectors. Many of the most dedicated glovers in the country post here and are happy to answer any questions you post.
Relacing your old gloves generally will not reduce their value and, in fact, might enhance it if done properly. Of course, if you had an old glove with the original laces still in great condition, you wouldn't want to change those. But laces on gloves are considered as a "maintenance" item- just like the tires if you were restoring a classic old car- and there is some expectation that they would be replaced over the years.
Again, speaking in general terms, a properly restored and relaced glove (cleaned and conditioned leather, re-shaped form and laces similar in appearance to the originals) will certainly not be worth less than the same glove in rough condition, and usually will be worth more.
As for the spots on your glove, it might depend on what the spots are (paint, mildew, etc.). While lanolin is an excellent conditioner, it is not a particularly great cleaner. Try to find a cleaner designed for leather and thoroughly clean the glove before applying any conditioning product. Think of cleaning and conditioning as two separate procedures.
While some of the cleaners available will remove most any spot, sometimes you're just stuck with them and no amount of cleaning will have any effect.
Check out the "Glove Repair/Restoration" section on the discussion board for many tips on getting your old gloves back into shape.
Finally, on selling your gloves: There is a section here where you can list your gloves for sale. Besides that, the biggest source of vintage glove sales would have to be eBay. Besides glove sales, you can also use eBay to see what gloves are "hot" on the market and to get actual values on gloves that have already sold.
Hope that helps!
