100 year old Pigskin Restored

Hello guys,
I shared this football as a pickup about a year and a half ago. I picked it up at an estate auction mixed in a box of junk. From the same estate auction, I also acquired about 5 team photos, and a bunch of other ephemera from a school called St. Marks, which is a college prep school in Southboro Mass. In addition, I won a 1907 Yale team photo and a Saint Marks football sweater in amazing condition.

The football was my favorite pickup, and is a Spalding J5 melon ball, but was in pretty poor condition, with the bladder in pieces, and the ball sucked in on itself. The ball has the year 07 painted on 1 side, and on the other the score of a game between St Marks and Milton Academy, and the date October 14, 1907.

Recently I saught the advice of someone who restores vintage sports items, and decided to have him restore it for me. And I must say, I am thrilled with the results. He did fantastic work and updated me every couple of days with the progress he made including photos showing the process.

I love the ball even more now, and it displays so much better, and I love the old melon shape.

I highly recommend the restorer and you can see some of his other work here:
http://home.neo.rr.com/mrshillhomepage/mepage.htm

Below are some before and afters.

http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n...fice2small.jpg

http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n...c/DSCF1221.jpg
http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n...c/DSCF1874.jpg
http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n...7OFinished.jpg
http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n...7QFinished.jpg

That looks great Keith. Can you take us through the steps to how it was restored?

Thats an awesome restore job!! Ball looks awesome!!

First, he removed the bladder which was falling apart. Then I believe he cleaned the leather with a leather cleaner called Lexol. He then filled the ball with a lightweight filler to give it its shape, relaced it, and used some sort of leather polish to finish off the job. I am probably skipping steps, but I think thats the jist of it.

What a beautiful restoration.

Very nice job.

Greg

Sweet ball Keith- I want to get myself one like that!!

-Joe