Cleaning 1909 Baseball

[Bridwell]

I have a National League 1909 baseball. On the top panel it has a red ink stamp for a local YMCA. Any way to remove the red ink?

It also has dirt from game use, that I might want to remove. Any help is appreciated.

[prewarsports]

You dont want to remove the red stamp, it was issued that way to soldiers overseas to use and they are rarer than ONL balls without the red stamp and the commissioner stamp on the side instead. If it is removed you would kill the value of a rare 1917-18 Baseball.

Here's mine.

Rhys

[khkco4bls]

wow dont touch it . that is exactly right. those are scarce.

[Bridwell]

Hi Rhys,

Thank you for that. My baseball is just like yours, except not as good condition. The "France" on the YMCA stamp was not readible until I saw your photos. Now I know mine is an ONL 1917-18 ball, as well.

Isn't this board fantastic?

[jbsports33]

Early Vintage Baseballs are not like bats or gloves, never try to clean the surface of markings on a ball this old, and the above members are right this was an original marking.

Jimmy

[BrandonG]

Why would you want to remove the YMCA logo? Its a YMCA ball, not a Major League NL Ball, if you took the YMCA logo off then you'd have a blank panel, the Spalding Horse Hide Cover logo would be missing from the top. Then you'd just have an odd ball and be erasing a piece of history...

[jpop43]

Glad you asked before getting out the scouring pad...here is our YMCA marked ball along with a couple of other items in our collections marked as such. The bats are of particular interest given that they are all pro/game model LS 125's...the one in our collection is a Tris Speaker model, but we've seen Collins, Jackson's, and Cobb's, along with un-endorsed ones.
www.dugouttreasures.com

[jpop43]

In addition to the YMCA markings on sporting goods during the WWI era, the Knights of Columbus also counter-stamped sporting goods (K of C) that were procured by their organization for use by US servicemen. If anyone has or finds a ball marked as such, we'd love to hear about it.
www.dugouttreasures.com

[vintagesportflips]

To followup on this topic (sorry if it takes it too far astray), but I have a game used football from the AEF Military Football Tournament of 1919 held in Paris. The football has an embossed YMCA logo (doesn't show up well in photos), as the YMCA supplied all the sporting goods for the AEF sports tourneys that were held in Europe after WWI.

[Bridwell]

This is turning out to be an interesting thread! Thanks for all the input, and great photos. I've certainly learned a lot, and I'm not going to attempt any cleaning!

Originally, I thought that the YMCA stamp was added decades later and would make the ball less valuable. You guys have shown me otherwise!