Baseball Glove Collection
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GUEST:
They've come from different places over a number of years, but mostly flea markets-- this one definitely a flea market-- or a garage sale.
APPRAISER:
So how many years have you been going to flea markets and garage sales?
GUEST:
35, maybe. Started early.
APPRAISER:
So what drew you to the gloves?
GUEST:
Well, I enjoy playing baseball and I actually like the way that they've evolved and changed over the years, and I like older things anyway.
APPRAISER:
And how much did you pay for these?
GUEST:
Well, the white one in the corner, I remember that one. That was kind of hard, it was $40. The others, it was probably around ten or so.
APPRAISER:
You look back at baseball, originally, like cricket, in the early-to-mid-1800s, it was played without gloves and it was actually deemed unmanly to use a glove, but what players found, particularly with the start of professional baseball in 1869, with the Cincinnati Red Stockings, is that players would get hurt, particularly their hands, fielding. I mean, could you imagine a player having to catch a fastball? It would be brutal. One of the first players that's been documented was a player named Doug Allison and he was one of the first to use a glove in 1870. And following that was another player named Charles Waitt. Albert Spalding was a Hall-of-Famer, saw this, and he was originally against gloves but then decided maybe this would be good, and was one of the first makers along with Draper and Maynard to actually manufacture gloves and sporting goods in the late 1800s. We're going to go backwards now in time. These gloves are from the 1940s and they have what you call the web, which is basically the forerunner of what you see today. Notice how much smaller they still are. I mean, your gloves today are huge. You could fit two hands in there. But the most important part was the web, which was actually developed by Bill Doak for Rawlings in 1919. And after that with Rawlings, it was known as the Bill Doak-style glove. This is what we call a buckle-back catcher's mitt from the 1930s, and catcher's mitts came about in the 1890s. These gloves on the market today, they're probably $25, $35. They're easy to find. And the catcher's mitt from the '30s, a little bit more. You see the great design. That may be $50. But this is the most intriguing glove of all. This is what they call a crescent glove. This is white buckskin; it was more durable than horsehide. And this is what they call an asbestos lining. This is from 1880s and this is the second generation. The first generation were fingerless gloves because they wanted to be able to feel the ball. This is the second generation. They took it from a railroad worker and basically adapted it and put more padding in it so it could be used by fielders. And this is what was used largely in the 1880s, 1890s, up until 1919, where they came to the web glove. Today these are extremely rare. The most rare and sought-after are the fingerless gloves and these are the second-most. And this, if you've noticed, is a left-hander's glove.
GUEST:
Right.
APPRAISER:
So that was worn on your right hand. These have sold at auction, the right-handers' gloves, between $2,000 and $3,000.
GUEST:
Wow.
APPRAISER:
This, being a left-hander's glove, and you see the great condition on it. I would put an insurance value somewhere around $4,000 on this.
GUEST:
Wow, that's amazing.
Appraisal Details
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Value can change: The value of an item is dependent upon many things, including the condition of the object itself, trends in the market for that kind of object, and the location where the item will be sold. These are just some of the reasons why the answer to the question "What's it worth?" is so often "It depends."
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