When you turn on your television these days, it’s hard to miss programs about buying and selling antiques. Joe Willard, author of the indispensable Picker’s Bible: How To Pick Antiques Like The Pros, counts more than 70 different shows in this genre. “There is fervor in collecting, restoring, selling and identifying,” he writes. “You can learn how to fix and clean stuff, but if you really want to gain a skill, just don’t repair, but actually restore if possible. Collectors and dealers never like to see any kind of obvious modifications, but a true restoration adds so much more value to an item. If it’s a valuable piece, make sure you know what you are doing or leave it to a qualified person to do. Most serious collectors want to do their own restoration, so be careful.”
If you know what you’re doing, transforming trash into treasure affords one of the biggest thrills in collecting. In some cases you can triple the value of a piece by improving its condition. Though I’m not particularly handy, I’ve gotten so good that I look for restoration projects at flea markets and on eBay. “It’s a way of putting a little of your personality into your piece,” says Art Katsapis, a longtime baseball memorabilia collector.
Major league game-used bats with pine, tar, dirt, ball-stitch marks, and even teeth-marks should be... [+]
Newspapers
The high levels of acidity in newsprint made from wood pulp cause it to decompose quickly. During the Watergate era, Time magazine published instructions to preserve historic newspapers. Dissolve a Phillips Milk of Magnesia tablet in a bottle of club soda. (Pour a few ounces of the soda out first to avoid overflow from the small eruption.) Refrigerate overnight. Soak newspaper in the liquid in a tub or oven tray for an hour. Pat excess water with paper towel and let dry. Ideally you should repeat the process every decade or so. Avoid exposure to sun or bright light, using only a UV protective frame. Finally avoid storage places like attics because their extreme heat and cold accelerate the acidic process.
Do not use this method if your publication is saddle stitched, as many magazines are, because the water will probably cause the staples to rust.
Book Jackets, Yearbooks, and Programs
To repair paper such as dust jackets and yearbook covers, apply Elmer’s Glue and wax paper from one end of a tear to another. After letting glue dry for a few hours, peel back the wax paper.
Leather Baseball Gloves, Catcher’s Masks, Cleats, Footballs, and Football Helmets
Nothing is easier to use and more effective for removing dirt and grime from leather than Horseman’s One Step Crème and non-toxic Lexol Leather Cleaner and Conditioner, products I first learned about from glove guru Joe Phillips. After scrubbing away with an old toothbrush, I wipe clean with an old undershirt.
Magic Marker and Sharpie are permanent. To remove ball point ink and felt tip marker, use the toothbrush with Murphy’s Oil Soap (available at any grocery store) and water, being sure to brush away the suds and soak the liquid with a sponge or undershirt. If Murphy’s meets its match, try the same method using another magic potion: Motsenbocker Lift Off #3 Pen, Ink, Marker, and Graffiti Remover (available at many hardware stores). Don’t give up if the ink remains stubborn. After the leather dries, rub with a pink and white or with a grey and white eraser like the kind you buy at any variety store. This method for removing ink will leave the leather bleached. To restore the original color, I recommend Meltonian shoe cream and polish (available at shoe repair shops) which comes in about three dozen colors. You can blend the different colors to create different shades.
A Kenny Jenkins photo of a valuable 1960s glove before restoration. (Credit: Kenny Jenkins)
My leather restoration and ink-removal will also work on handbags, couches, boots and anything else made of leather.
To clean dirty cloth labels on gloves and masks, apply Graffiti Remover with your index finger. Gently pat down with a slightly damp sponge. Do not rub or brush the labels because they are very fragile.
Do not clean baseball gloves game-used by major league players. The dirt, oil, and uniform numbers in marker show the players’ game action. See my recent post about an extremely cool $2.5K Ken Boyer gamer.
A total restoration of the glove above, from the label to the lacing. (Credit: Kenny Jenkins)
Baseball Bats
For the most part, as is the case with game-used gloves, leave vintage game-used major league bats alone unless they’re filthy or have lost their finish. The pine-tar, ball-stich and bat-rack marks, and even cracks show appropriate game use.
For retail or store-model bats Murphy’s is an excellent wood cleaner when mixed with water. A seasoned logger from Oregon named Tom Hirons taught me to finish book cases with boiled linseed oil. You’ll want to mix it with one third or half turpentine to expedite its drying. Tung oil gives a beautiful coating, as well. If a bat is autographed, you don’t want to risk ruining the autograph. And be extra careful with bats which have decals or foil stamps, as opposed to burned engravings, or else you can permanently remove them.
Catcher’s Masks and Other Metal
To restore the bars and wires of old catchers’ masks, use light steel wool and Nevr-Dull Magic Waddding Polish. I also polish the brass shank buttons that were once made to attach the wrist strap to the back of a glove. “I’ve found Brasso to be one of the best cleaners for most metals, too,” says Joe Phillips. “I learned about it shining belt buckles in the army.”
In general leave trophies alone; the vintage patina is part of their history.
Before and after photos of John Taube's restorations show the disappearance of "dead wood" and... [+]
CALLING IN THE PROS
For the toughest glove and bat repairs, there are many restoration and conditioning services. I have either used these or they come highly recommended by collectors whose opinions I respect. They all do work by mail. "One thing to remember is that if you are doing significant restoration and then want to re-sell, make sure you have notified your buyer that a restoration has been made," Phillips says.
Gloves and Other Leather Goods
www.glovedoctor.com
Since 1987, John Golomb’s Glove Doctor service has “restored, refurbished, and repaired equipment dating back to the [last] turn of the century, enabling him to compile 100 years of leather craft know-how. Golomb also works on football and boxing equipment and handcrafts replicas of some of the earliest baseball glove made. Over the years he has done some beautiful repairs for me on the binding of a 1950s Jackie Robinson glove and a 1890s webless glove that was part of a special exhibit at the Yogi Berra Museum in Montclair, New Jersey.
William Peebles at last years' National Sports Collectors Convention with a beautiful giant replica... [+]
Says William Peebles, the owner: “All of our materials are sourced from U.S. vendors. We take great pride and pleasure in doing our part to support American craft and industry, while maintaining our focus on making top-quality baseball items the same they were 100 years ago.” Aside from doing vintage restoration and preservation, Peebles offers high-quality reproductions of bats, balls, and caps from the late 1800s. At last year’s National Sports Collectors Convention, he showed off some spectacular outsized gloves he crafted which were inspired by models from the early 1900s.
Mike Wakefield says he “Provides professional baseball glove, and mitt reconditioning and restoration services. We service collectors, many universities, and professional organizations that demand nothing but the best. Best glove relacing service provider on the web, 7 years running.” Wakefield did a fabulous relacing job on a Wilson A2000 that my friend Jerry Goodbody had used in college in the early 1970s
Says Fran Fleet, “In the mid-1970s, while I was still a sandalmaker, people began bringing their baseball gloves into my shop for repair. Since then I have repaired and reconditioned thousands of gloves at my shop and at baseball and softball tournaments throughout Northern California and Nevada. My customers range from children to old0timers, and they enjoy the game of baseball/softball and have a favorite glove they love enough to want to repair.” In the late ‘90s I visited Fleet in her shop north of San Francisco in Cotatia, California where she had drawn elaborate DaVinci-like designs of intricate gloves she had relaced.
Says Kenny Jenkins, “I worked at Rawlings Sporting Goods Co. for over 20 years, constructing, repairing, and restoring gloves for major league baseball players as well as restoring vintage top-of-the-line gloves for collectors. Complete restoration services for vintage top-of-the-line Rawlings gloves from the ‘50s, ‘60s, ‘70s to today. Everything from simple relacing and reshaping to complete restoration, including restitching, re-lining, new binding pinky/thumb loops, wrist snugger adjust, lacing, shaping, cloth patch— everything!” One of his happiest customers, my glove friend, Bruce Rodgers calls Jenkins “the BEST— from relacing to FULL repair/restoration, Kennny is the man.”
Baseball Bats
Says John Taube, “For the past 20 years, JT Sports has offered collectors of game-used bats a repair and restoration service enabling them to restore badly damaged bats to their original game-used condition. From small handle cracks to complete replacement of missing pieces, we guarantee outstanding results. More importantly, our work will not impact the integrity of bats’ authenticity.” Taube, JT Sports’ owner, comprises half the team for PSA/DNA, the leading game-used bat authentication service.
Steve Ambramson restores some of the most beautiful century-old decal bats. Be careful cleaning them... [+]
Says Steve Abramson, “Being involved in woodworking for over 30 years I branched out a while back into bat restoration. I have repaired vintage bats from Ruth, Cobb, Sisler, and Gehrig to more recent gamers like Mantle, Musial, Mattinngly, Ripken Jr., and Jeter. Any repairs are possible with barely any sign that the bats were ever broken.” As part of Ambramson’s services, he does the painstaking work of restoring decal bats from the early 1900s by painting in parts to blend in or replacing the entire decal an exact replica.. He also runs a professional furniture stripping and refinishing business.
For further information:
www.vintagebaseballgloveforum.com
