Vintage Baseball Glove Forum

Why is it everytime i see a "newer" used HOH
glove, It looks like it's falling apart and the leather
cant hold up to a few seasons? These gloves dont
at all get better over time. The older HOH"s were
way different. whats going on here? Ebay Item number: 260241188909
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... %26fvi%3D1

doubleSwitch wrote:Why is it everytime i see a "newer" used HOH
glove, It looks like it's falling apart and the leather
cant hold up to a few seasons?

rode hard and put away wet. many of these gloves are used much harder by competitive youth players than they were when we were kids.

It doesn't matter how good your stuff is if you don't take care of it.

i would agree with glovemedic and doubleswitch. many of the young players are playing ball year around which puts a glove to more use. but many players don't take care of their gloves either. no conditioning, leaving them in the trunk etc.

i also agree with offsidewing, the leather does matter. the old school horween and the tanning methods were superior as far as durability, feel and shape retention. i've seen plenty of abused OSH's that i was able to recondition and re-lace with great performance results.

the "now" generation is too impatient to break in an old school horween glove. they want to take the glove from the store that day and play with it in the game that night. so of course, rawlings execs hear their cry and comply. Docglov mentioned that Mizuno started the soft glove trend and started putting them in college and pro lockers. it caught on b/c of the quick turnaround and all the other companies had to follow suit.

too bad

That glove belongs to one of my good friends (I recognized it even before I saw his user name). He has played it very hard over the past 4-5 years, including his first two years of college ball.


I've turned a lot of double plays that started their journey in that glove.

You recognized the glove before you recognized your friend's username??

Dude, YOU are a glover!

Some of these import gloves are being advertised as Horween Leather and i dont believe it's the same as the old Horween. Most high end ralwings gloves that are used and some what taken care of, seem to just fall apart after time.

hey DS, if you read the thread from Skip Horween, this might clarify

http://www.vintagebaseballgloveforum.co ... php?t=1743

Seems Rawlings Not only started having their gloves made over sea's to save money. They still wanted American Horween leather used in their top of the line gloves, BUT...a big BUT...Per Mr. Skip Horween, Rawlings started asking for "SOFTER LEATHER" = THINNER LEATHER...The only way to make Horween leather softer i Believe is to make it thinner. Therfore saving even more money. Hey ! and the glove only lasts a couple of seasons!! Then they have to go and buy another glove !! Nothing compares to the U.S.A. Made Horween Rawling's Glove Pre 1997
and dont let anyone try and feed you anything else. Rawling's had, has a bunch of old farts running the company trying to turn a profit. Has nothing to do turning out a "Top of the line" product for consumer use. Funny thing is Pro Preffered and Heart of the Hide gloves STILL cost over $150.00 all the way up !! Were just suckers for the past eh? Thats why on Ebay you will see U.S.A. made Horween gloves sell for the $400.00 range. Buy em up....there will be nothing like them anymore. I think the price will only go up...............

Question 2) What is the difference from the leather that was used in the pre-1997 Heart of the Hide gloves that used the really stiff Horween leather and the leather that is used today(unless they are no longer using Horween leather)

Answer from Mr. Skip Horween "Rawlings around that time started asking for much softer leather, they also used the same leather for lining. They are using our leather still"

docglov stated in another thread that no that nobody has better quality control than their Philippians’ plant. Maybe they switched manufacturing locations to actually improve quality not just decrease cost.

There are other ways to soften leather than just making it thinner. Staking, milling, and adding additional oils to the tannage. I disagree with pre 1997 Horween as being the gold standard. The stiff horween produced splits in the finger crotch like no other.

Rawlings softened up their gloves because the market changed and a mass market company like Rawlings had to change. If they stayed with the extra stiff leather their gloves would really be collector items and we would be talking about them in the past tense.

I've got a 4-dot (1999) horween Pro-1000 that is every bit as good as my 1994 Pro-1005BF.

But yes, The leather today is not what it was the past 20-30 years.