The Collector: Americana, nostalgia drive Dave Jackson’s collection of vintage baseball gloves
Baseball is in Dave Jackson’s blood. His father played for a St. Louis Cardinals minor league team from 1949 to 1951.
“I was born in St. Louis,” Jackson said.
He played Little League and continued to enjoy the sport via rec leagues until a shoulder injury sidelined him six years ago at age 60. But there’s still a Jackson playing ball – his youngest daughter is the starting shortstop at North Central High School.
Jackson hung on to his Little League gloves but didn’t start collecting them in earnest until 1987.
“I don’t collect autographs, cards, balls or bats,” he said. “Bats break, balls get lost, but a kid never gives up his glove. You take that with you into adulthood.”
The 400 gloves in his collection span from the late 1800s to the 1960s, with a few later models in the mix.
One of his favorites is a 1920 Spaulding, the leather scored with the creases of age and hundreds of catches.
“I call it ‘Grandpa’s Face,’ ” Jackson said.
One of his oldest gloves is a catcher’s mitt manufactured by the A.J. Reach Company in Philadelphia in 1891. Its distinctive hook-and-eye lacing is a hallmark of gloves made before the turn of the century and its well-worn buckskin has a greenish hue. With a cost of $7.50 in 1891, it would have been an expensive investment at the time.
Jackson pointed to a name etched into the mitt.
“Who was Gary McMillan?” he wondered. “How many amazing plays did he make with this mitt?”
Like many collectors, Jackson is thrilled when he finds an item still in its original box, like a fielder’s glove made by the OK (Ohio Kentucky) MFG Co.
“It’s rare to find them with the box,” he said. “It’s pretty sweet.”
His favorite gloves are from the 1940s.
“The leather is so rich and creamy and the gloves are so fluffy!” he said.
For example, a vintage Nokona made in Texas in the 1940s is stuffed with extra padding. Likewise, a MacGregor Goldsmith with a button back still feels sturdy, and the warm patina on a Firestone seems to glow.
“They were so well made,” Jackson said. “I can slip one on and imagine someone making a life-changing catch.”
His collection traces the evolution of the glove. Jackson displayed a black 1925 model.
“It’s flat,” he said. “You had to use two hands to catch a ball. They started developing the pocket in the 1940s and you could then get away with playing one-handed.”
Jackson scours eBay, garage sales and antique shows for his finds, but one unusual addition came from a random encounter at a local brewery.
“I met Don Gordon,” he said.
Gordon pitched for the Toronto Blue Jays and the Cleveland Indians and told Jackson he had a glove that might interest him. The mitt features a tag that reads “USSR Leningrad.”
“I bought it from him,” Jackson said.
By far his most unique and expensive acquisitions are two gloves that were found in a trunk in Norway in 2017. The owner of an apartment building in Trondheim discovered a dusty old chest which had remained closed, possibly for a century. Inside was an assortment of pristine sporting goods, including rare baseball gloves, circa 1920.
They were manufactured by Draper and Maynard, an athletic supply company based in New Hampshire from the 1880s to the 1930s.
Dubbed the greatest pre-1940s baseball glove find, the collection prompted intense bidding on eBay.
Jackson was happy to snag two gloves with their blank price tags still attached, but the biggest prize was out of his league – a Babe Ruth facsimile signature glove that fetched $11,600.
But value and rarity don’t drive Jackson’s collection – Americana and nostalgia do.
“Baseball is America’s sport and when you’re a kid, your baseball glove was your best friend,” he said. “It went everywhere with you and rode on the handlebars of your bike.”
He picked up a glove and smiled.
“Every one of these was someone’s pride and joy.”