Joe Phillips, the father of our hobby, authored and published these Glove Collector Newsletters from 1989 to 2009. We collectors would eagerly await the bi-monthly newsletter to arrive in our mailboxes. It was not only a way to learn about vintage baseball gloves, which we all had such a hunger for, but also a way […]
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Back in January the Hall of Fame asked me to write a brief history of baseball gloves and how they evolved over the years for the Opening Day issue of their magazine, Memories & Dreams. You know me, always happy to chat about my favorite subject. The problem is shutting me up, and I only […] 
Joe and I got to talkin’ about the Nokona Glove Source book he’s putting together and when he included all his Nokona pics he accumulated over the years for comment, the email conversation turned to the largest glove find and it was so much fun and such valuable hobby information, I had to memorialize it […] 
Over the years collectors have always dreamed of finding that super rare or one-off model. In fact, a number of collectors hunt for the rare or obscure names. The conversation always turns to, “I want to find a Joe Blow model.” “Good luck with that. That model doesn’t exist,” I’m quick to say. […] 
Was speaking with my buddy Brett a couple of weeks ago and told him I was off to Nashville. He said I needed to stop in Shelbyville, TN to see Jon English’s new Antique Sports & Card Shop, which was about to open. Said it was all over Instagram. I hardly ever check Instagram […] 
Met with my buddy Skip Claprood today (11/19/19) for a quick get together in San Clemente. Skip is a Wilson A2000 guru. He has a full run of them starting in the first year, 1958, and can identify them without even looking in catalogs. I can’t do that for A2000’s. He knows all of the […] Rawlings Glove Innovations 5 Guest Columnist – Skip Claprood Wilson A2000 Guest Columnist – Skip Claprood Thanks to some innovative baseball players and three fine glove designers Rawlings Sporting Goods fairly dominated the baseball glove landscape from 1922 forward. “Finest in the Field” and it stuck! At one point, in the 1950s, Rawlings was claiming that roughly 80% of all gloves worn on major leaguers’ hands. I don’t know if the […] Was reviewing the control panels on the backend of the site and pulled up some stats. Interesting that modern gloves and catalogs were downloaded the most, more so than anything vintage. From what I have seen lately on modern glove prices on the Forum, that side of the hobby seems to be thriving. The vintage […] Will the legacy and collecting favor of the Brooklyn Dodgers last or become a baseball memory row of apartment buildings like its old home: Ebbets Field? Focusing directly, we’re talking about the Brooklyn Dodger team(s) from 1947 to 1956 which left an indelible impression on not only baseball but on the nation in that decade. […] For most baseball followers, it’s difficult to distinguish the Joe Jackson who starred for Philadelphia, Cleveland, and most notably, Chicago White Sox, AKA the Black Sox, from the mystical Joe Jackson of book and movie fame. Two movies a year apart: “Eight Men Out” (1988) and “Field Of Dreams” (1989) produced two distinct views of […] I get asked all the time about the definition of a workman’s glove and I have my own very strong opinion. I also see many people mis-labeling them all over the place in my opinion. I put together this blog post with the hopes of shedding some more light on the subject for the […] My curiosity was aroused the other day when I was reviewing a Lou Brock game-used glove. The thought suddenly occurred to me that there were probably more Brock game gloves in existence than one could find retail endorsed models. Though he was a MacGregor Glove Company endorser and used the MacGregor gloves for the most […] Two recent events have set my mind to thoughts of our glove hobby and its evolution in the past 20 years. One of these is the internet. Our collecting passion for baseball gloves and mitts, like many collectibles in the antique fields, has felt the full impact of the electronic wizardry […] I don’t know if it’s the weather or if there’s something in the air but it’s definitely tradin’ season. Lots of great gloves changing hands as of late. It’s so exciting. The glove forum is down due to a corruption of the software files. The issue is above my knowledge level and I’m in contact with a few web programmers to see the most cost effective and efficient way to correct the problem. I’m pretty sure the database has not been compromised so all […] Word on the street is that a few collectors will be paring down a bit this year. This bodes well for buying opportunities for our collections. Our hobby will benefit by a slight increase in supply as the current demand for quality vintage gloves can more than absorb it. I just hope it’s not all […] This is my favorite time of year. With the postseason upon us, I’m spending a lot of time in front of the TV watching every game I can along with football on Sunday. With all this time on the couch I have the laptop in overdrive uploading pictures and updating the galleries. We are […] 
While in Minnesota I met up with my old buddy Paul Gertsen. He was gracious enough to take the day off and show me around his stomping grounds. We went antiquing in this neat little town where he had great success for many years. He was so cool that he even tried to give me […] Just got back from the All-Star Game in Minneapolis and attended FanFest as always. This year I timed it just right somehow and saw the Lou Gehrig Mitt go off at the Hunt Live Auction. I taped it on my phone in two files. Later on at Target Field I ran out of space on […] I recently visited my good friend Mike and of course, we pulled off another whopper due to his generous and brilliant deal-making skills. I purchased his collection of early cabinets and photos. I always admired them and was drawn to them for many reasons and not just because of the equipment. I have identified lots […] Congratulations Tim in getting featured in TouchOfModern just in time for Father’s Day. These prints are super cool. Get one for your sports room or office. Remember, BGC members get 15% off. Check out Tim’s other projects. TIMOTHYHOGAN INC – Innovative Advertising Images ESSNTL GALLERY – Groundbreaking Modern Art at Bergamot Station. THEFINPROJECT.COM – Documentary […] I’ve been taking advantage of the slow time in the hobby to get caught up with scanning and uploading. I went through some old glove files and scanned in a bunch of sales lists from the 90’s. For you newer collectors, this is how we bought and sold gloves in the old days. Guys would […] I recently finished Joe’s second edition of Nokona Ball Gloves A Texas Tradition. It contains many new updates from the first printing five years ago. Even as a passionate Nokona collector I learned many new things about the company from reading these two books. Did you know the city of Nocona was named after a […] I usually think gloves look best in person. I now stand corrected. Back when Timothy Hogan came by and to shoot my collection for ESPN The Magazine (see the blog post here) I was amazed at what went into making these photographs – and at the final result. Now, he’s launched a new website specifically […] 
Jonathan is at it again. He continues to take us on a collecting journey with his follow up entitled Dugout Treasures, Collecting Crossroads while exploring the theme of change. This book is an asset to our hobby and I commend him for writing it. I wish more people would follow his lead and write a […] 
I flew to Montana late Friday night to spend a full day on Saturday with my buddy Mike. We had a lot of catching up to do. It was short by design though. Any longer and we would have slipped into our old ways and done another mega-deal as I can’t trust myself. Well, true […] 
I just got off the phone with our glove buddy Dave Cunningham who had very bad news to report. His home caught fire and everything was completely destroyed including his life’s belongings, family memories and his one of a kind Glove Web and Softball Glove collection consisting of over 150 of the toughest web styles […] Back in the summer of 2012, a classic find of mint condition baseball cards were located in the attic of an Ohio home. These cards, though not in a particular valuable or rare issued set from the 1920s, took the baseball collecting world and especially the venerable card market by shock and the find was […] 
I helped my folks in the rafters of their garage today and found my dad’s old typewriter from when he was a Dodgers beat writer back in ’76 and ’77. Story goes, he was at Spring Training with the Dodgers in Vero Beach, Florida in 1977 and he won the Shag Shaughnessy award for best […] 
In June, 2012 I was contacted by ESPN The Magazine through the website about doing a piece on collections and the evolution of the baseball glove. We corresponded back and forth for months, traded some pics and then they said they would send out some photographers to shoot the gloves. (I could have saved them […] 
For some reason I have a special respect for Joe Gordon. Maybe it was after I first saw When it Was a Game on HBO or maybe because he was one heckuva player. Most Gordon glove models are quite common and were made by Marathon (Montgomery Wards), Folsom, Sonnett, OK, M&H Sporting Goods and Stall […] A sale on ebay that’s been up for over a year carries some mint and mint in the box gloves that we determined came from 1980s sale of gloves from a store or warehouse in Baltimore. That sale resulted in a Glove Collectors Book being produced by Jim Mace, son of a doctor who had […] 
Ran out of room in the closet so I had to shuffle and move some things to overflow. Boxes are the pinnacle of the hobby but they take up so much room. Once you get one in the box, there’s nowhere to go from there. I get such a kick out of pairing up a […] Back in the early yon of glove collecting, (early 1990s) several movies were in the hopper. “Eight Men Out” about the 1919 Black Sox World Series scandal and a followup bigger box office draw, “Field Of Dreams.” Both movies were under the direction of John Sales. Curiosity got the best of us as we were […] 
Per your requests, I uploaded all my Oregon Trail catalogs to the Glove Library. It’s fun to reminisce and get nostalgic about the old days of the hobby but it’s even more fun to see so many glove offerings. Oh how we used to look forward to receiving these. Go to the Glove Library and […] 
As I was putting Jonathan’s book on the shelf in my library, I came across this old one from 1992. Has anybody read it? Do you agree with his predictions? How do you think it holds up today? It’s interesting to compare the landscape of ’92 to today. JD […] 
Back in December I received a rogue package in the mail with a personal note accompanying a book. This note, so eloquently and passionately written, moved me. It was from Jonathan informing me that he had spent the last two years writing a book and asked if I would give it a read. A new […] The publication in June of 1991 of the story on Nokona glove making and our program to make reproduction of its gloves had the germination of a chance conversation with Jim Storey, then president of Nocona Athletic Goods. When we told him were looking for a direct mail marketing program, he mentioned that many old […] There were several little side notes to the “big” glove finds. 1. The Baltimore or Dr. Mace find. John Graham and I were able to buy about a half dozen of these gloves, some still in their original boxes from a Fort Worth Texas collector who had about 20 or 30 of them and who […] We often wonder when we might get into another “big” glove find with multiples of mint/near mint gloves from old Sporting Goods stores or warehouses. There were several of these glove mines discovered in the late 1980s and 1990s. The biggest of these was what we’ve termed the “Kansas Find” in a warehouse just out […] Just released! New EXPANDED VERSION of “Baseball Gloves Merge With America’s Past” is now in 3 different book formats. The hot off the press glove book has over 110 pages loaded with more than 500 high quality glove related pictures depicting glove evolution. It is now available in three formats: printed book, CD-book and PDF-book […] 
Over the last couple of years John Graham and I would meet up for breakfast or lunch every couple of months when he was in Orange County. Well I got to Dallas recently and spent some time with John. Finally got to see his collection in person. OMG! What a collection. He was the most […] 
Our great hobby is getting all kinds of publicity lately with the Tornado Palm, Brett on ESPN E-60, Joe’s comments in the Dallas Morning News, John Graham’s book and now Dave’s enjoyable follow-up book entitled Baseball Gloves Merge With America’s Past in which Dave weaves an American historical thread through the evolution of ball gloves. […] Some great World Series gloves made the front page of the NY Times online. Check it out. http://www.nytimes.com/ http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/10/26/magazine/20101026-world-series-gloves-photos.html?hp http://www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/garage-sale-find-tornado-palm-glove/ http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/100410dntexnokona.2765518.html 
This beautiful Christy Mathewson Goldsmith JG8 Spider Web glove just came across my desk to sell. It marks just the 10th Matty to surface in the hobby. The seller is not a glove collector so this one was unknown til now and that’s exciting to me as a collector. It makes you wonder how many […] 
This is what we mean by pain for pain. Don’tworry RBD, the sorrow will go away in just shy of 10 years. That’s what Rob keeps telling me of our earlier trades. JD […] In casual conversation with then Nocona Glove President Jim Storey in 1990, I mentioned a project using Nocona ball gloves as a direct mail project. He replied that they always had requests for players wanting their old gloves from previous years, even previous decades. “We can still make them as we have the dies. Maybe […] I have been on such a boxed glove kick as of late. I have been trading off lots of stuff that isn’t boxed toward stuff that is. It took me many years to get here but now I finally appreciate them for what they are. From a collecting standpoint, it’s the ultimate way to complete […] 
I just finished looking through my copy of my buddy John Graham’s new book for like the fifth time. I never get tired of looking at pictures of great gloves. John and his family put together an incredible book memorializing his amazing collection. What a fun way to memorialize the greatest private glove collection ever […] 
Mike, you are a very, very bad influence on me. 
Got to Tahoe for Spring Break to do some snowboarding and I hooked up with my bud Josh Maddux who recently relocated from Indiana to Nevada. He works with the Reno Aces, a Triple A Diamondbacks club starting their second season. It was good to see him again. Man, it was cold. The park and […] Hi All, In the spirit and intent of the Collector’s Corner, I just wanted to post a quick note to let everyone know that I will be deleting all profiles on April 1st that aren’t at least half way filled out. If you get deleted then you can re-register and fill out another profile. Two […] It’s official. I’ve decided I’m not much of a blogger. Just not that into it I guess. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because I’m a little burnt out. You know how you have ups and downs and highs and lows in collecting? Well I’m at the trough and am looking for the recovery, the […] Did anyone catch Tom Bartsch’s comments in his column in last month’s SCD? It’s nice when our little hobby gets some mention in papers. Story in the Library entitled Grabbing a Mitt Can Take You Back 50 Years. JD In mid December of 1975 on the referral of a friend, my boss and I travelled some 70 miles to the tiny North Texas town of Nocona, Texas to call on a prospective new client, Nocona Athletic Goods Company, producer of the Nokona gloves which I had used in past days and was very familiar […] 
John Graham and I took a trip out to Rob’s new house yesterday. It’s an absolutely beautiful home and Rob and his wife Michelle are still putting it together. Here’s a pic of Rob, John and I. You should have seen him take down a mannequin, prop it up ever so carefully, put the camera […] This is why glove collecting is fun. The following article appeared in the Sunday edition of the Missoulian. It’s a nice piece about a glove and its link to the past. It’s also about a modest guy with an incredible collection who loves and respects the game and that’s cool. Check it out and let […] Fortune Small Business featured a glove article in the November, 2009 issue entitled Catching a Break about Vinci gloves. Story featured in the Library. Sorry there is no web link. JD 
We missed you all at the first annual Montana Glove Get-Together. I went out to see Mike Ellis again and finally met BJ Ayers. We met up at BJ’s house and were overwhelmed by his incredible collection. That’s Mike on the left, BJ in the middle and me on the right. His son took the […] So far, so good guys. Start filling out your profiles and keep your traders current. I have already heard of two trades so far. That’s cool, which means it’s working. Is there any other information you want to capture or know about each other? We can make more information fields if we want. If anyone […] Excerpt from my interview with Joe.
Give us yours and your dad’s background.
I have been a sports fan ever since I was born. My dad worked for the NCAA for awhile when I was really young and then became the beat writer for the Dodgers, Angels and Rams for local Los Angeles […] A year or so ago Mike Ellis and I were sitting in a coffee shop in Missoula, MT eating burgers and reflecting on our epic glove deal that took place a year earlier. I went back for more punishment on round two (as if 452 gloves wasn’t enough) when he gave me the idea to […] |
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