Rawlings Fielding Gloves Dot Code Breaker???

[gobills123]

I've seen a handful of gloves from that time frame, that appear to potentially be custom pro shop ordered gloves, that do not have any markings. The dedicated glove collectors say they don't exist, but yet there they are. Some claim the dots will raise up and fade over time and use, I dunno about that entirely. I would not be too worried about the lack of date code, though it is nice to have them on there as a sort of validation or to narrow the date range down.

BTW, FWIW, I ordered a custom Rawlings St Louis Custom Shop heart of the hide glove just last year and it has no date code stamping. Point being gloves are still coming out of certain Rawlings factories with no date codes.

After the change, Bob continued making gloves for players who preferred the USA dyes. Those were more rounded/bowled as things got retooled after the move abroad. Sure, he did the big name guys like griffey, hunter, gwynn, mcgwire, ripken, arod.... but also did the lesser name guys who wanted to keep things the same. Once Bob retired, that meant the end of usa gloves (although he kept helping a guy or two until the end) but when the SLCS closed- that was the end of the favor gloves as well. If you knew him, hed do ANYTHING for you. Any color labels, any era labels, and model #, blank palms, a special made by Bob stamp, catchers R wrist patches on fielding gloves, patterns that hadnt been offered in years... pretty sick stuff. No dates on those bad boys... As most of his pro gloves didnt have dates. My mcgwire is dateless as well as countless other pro gloves he made. I'm a HUGE glove collector and totally accept no dating on some models. Itd be silly to think otherwise

[gobills123]

yep, pretty sure... 98% confidence - everything lines up and nothing on the photos that doesn't match my glove, but lacking the resolution to definitively call it. Additionally, glove has #21 written on it and is signed with a 21 inscription, the last year Segui wore #21 was 1999. This glove actually may have been manufactured in winter 1996 and used 1997-98, which would correspond to a 1-Dot in the 5-Dot system. 1998 was known to be 3, then 1997 could be 2, and 1996 could be 1. I heard that some factories started using the 5-Dot code in 1995, 5 Dots for 1995 being the origin of the system.

95 and 96 still would have been USA and it's all blackhorse. I cant recall ever seeing a datecode that early. the factory would have been the AVA plant still sourcing guttmans, horween, and tenn tan leather. There shouldnt be much discrepancy until 97 at the EARLIEST.... then with the mix of retooled patterns, adding the D ( for domestic) to the end of usa gloves and having the exact same pattern but 2 different versions on the shelf at the same time it got kinda crazy and anything goes