Vintage Baseball Glove Forum

First of all, I wouldn't use the Dr. Jackson's on light colored leather. It would just darken it too much unless that was the object. On the Rawlings, I didn't use any conditioner on the white leather. I used it only on the dark inner lining and piping. I used an old tooth brush on the Rawlings and brushed it good. That worked remarkably well on the buckskin in getting rid of the dingy look. I was careful not to use it near the markings on the front. For that weird stain on the front, I used a 320 grit sandpaper and buffed it again with the brush. For the markings, I used the edge of an x-acto knife and scraped around the letters. That was a little tedious. The glove was really nice to begin with and had a ton of potential.

I'm proud to share some before and after pics of my latest project - a late 50's Hal Naragon Wilson catchers mitt (A2556). This is a lower end mitt and it was in pretty poor condition with a frankenstein-ed web from a fielders glove but I needed a Naragon endorsed model for my collection of MN Twins gloves. So I plunked down $10 plus shipping and bought myself a challenging project that kept me busy most of November. Check it out:


Not to get too sentimental but in the spirit of the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, I want to send out my gratitude to all the members of this forum and the glove collecting community in general. The only way I could have ever brought the Naragon mitt back to life is by using all the great info I've absorbed from reading this forum, baseballglovecollector.com and the Catalog Sourcebook. In particular, the x-acto knife technique mikesglove mentioned earlier in this thread was a huge help in bringing this mitt's stampings and signature from a nearly completely obscured state to relatively decent legibility. Thanks and cheers everyone!

I found this on ebay. It was well used for sure. I could see it was white buckskin, the seams were good, the tag was intact and most important, the factory markings were there. You just don't find many white buckskin gloves with intact markings. The only unknown was the liner and luckily no rips or tears in the finger stalls. It took some work but was satisfying to restore.

Wow. Very impressive work as always Mike.

Just finished cleaning up this KenWel 560 Elmer Valo to add to my collection of gloves endorsed by Minnesota Twins. (In his 20th and final MLB season at age 40, Elmer appeared in 33 games for the 1961 Twins in their inaugural season.)

Can anyone help pinpoint when this glove was made? I'm guessing late 40's/early 50's but haven't been able to track down any Kenwel catalogs or listings from that era to say for sure. From what I have gathered about KenWel, it looks like the 560 was their top of the line model in earlier decades. Any chance that was still the case when this glove was made? I'd appreciate whatever insights or info anyone might be able to provide.

My guess is 1950s. I don't have a catalog listing for it but it looks high quality, with the rolled piping and snugger wrist strap. Nice job cleaning it up!

Ok, you guys have hit some really beautiful gloves / mitts with some incredible restorations. This is somewhat older time-wise as I did this a few years back. But the result was worth the grief I got when I purchased this for $11. Got the last laugh after clean-up. (If I posted this before, sorry for duplication. You know, memory goes as age advances). Old, Home Run Special Babe Ruth, Spalding glove.

Really nice work! Cleaned up way better than I would have ever expected. What did you use to get such nice results? (if you don't mind me asking)

to clean up the Ruth mitt, I started out with Horseman's One Step and a textured rag (old towel as opposed to t-shirt) to clean and revitalize the leather. Small area by small area until original color sneaks thru. In some spots, the use of Mr. Clean MagicErasers helped remove some of the really tough crap. Once that was done, the key was old-school shoe polish, the type where the oils float to the top of the jar if left sitting around. This gave more color and texture back to the glove. And at this point, the leather just absorbed the oils. Polish by brushing with shoe brush. No tacky residue as glove feels like newly cleaned shoe leather. FYI to those that haven't tried to clean a glove--it is a slow process. Old leather, re-stringing, tough, ingrained dirt, etc. but well worth the effort (and to some of us, a ton of fun to see new life in old leather).

Here's a couple 1950's MacGregor rehab projects some of you might enjoy.

First is a G113 Ralph Kiner with a Spider Web and the reverse button wrist strap - two of my favorite classic MacG features. Despite a lot of grime and creases, the leather was still in good shape. Amazingly, so were the laces. I was able to carefully pull them all out, clean them, condition them, and relace the glove with the original laces.



My other project was a G119 Johnny Sain model from the MacGregor Goldsmith era. I was very pleased with how nice the leather and stampings came back to life after wiping away nearly seven decades of tarnish. I even shined up the MG button and painted in the crumbling piping to finish the makeover. Then I enjoyed the cool of the evening.

Here are some before and after pics of a recent rehab project - a MacGregor Ferris Fain Personal Model Trapper mitt from the mid 50s. It appeared to have been put away really wet and forgotten for about 60 years ago. The leather was rock hard and misshaped with a weird covering of blotchy dirt, grime and perhaps mold. After unlacing it, I found the old stiffeners in the thumb and finger areas had been deformed and petrified into odd shapes. Removing them made a big difference in restoring the flexibility and proper shape. Cleaning and conditioning was a long, tedious process but eventually the leather and stampings really came back to life nicely. Can't wait to have a catch with this one when the weather warms up!

A buddy of mine found these two gloves as he helped clean out his grandparent's house after they moved to assisted living. It was a was a lot of fun to get them cleaned up for him and his family.

The first one is a Hutch Model 42 "Pep" Young mitt. I wasn't able to pin down the date on this one but I believe it would be late 30's or early 40's. Can anyone confirm?



The second one is a Wilson A2944 Bob Grim Autograph Model. From looking through the old catalogs, it looks like this model was only made in 1959. Not much wear and tear on this one so it looks almost brand new after some cleaning and conditioning.



For anyone like me who was unfamiliar with Bob Grim, he burst onto the scene with 20 wins in his 1954 rookie season with the Yankees (last AL pitcher to accomplish that feat). But he developed arm trouble after trying to add the slider to his arsenal and was forced to the bullpen. Led the league in saves (19) and made an All-Star appearance in 1957 but had little success after that, bouncing around to the A's, Indians, Reds, Cardinals to finish up his career over the next couple years. His 1996 New York Times obituary reports he suffered a heart attack and died after throwing snowballs with neighborhood children.

Happy New Year everyone! My holiday break project was restoring this MacGregor GC10 Gus Bell Personal Model. This was a top end MacGregor glove in ~1959 and it responded really well to some careful cleaning, conditioning and relacing.



Anyone else out there fixing up some vintage gloves? If so, I'd love to see some before and after pics of your work. Cheers!