[ksfarmboy]

Well I guess it's took long enough to respond to this thread but I misplaced my basketball and just found it today.

What does salesmen sample mean? Something a salesman carried around to hawk their wares that was not necessarily duplicated in size. Does it have to be heavy or large to make transportation difficult? Imagine hauling around a bunch of full size basketballs, uniforms, shoes, and everything else you need to play basketball. Heck you probably are selling other sporting goods items too. It wouldn't take long to fill up your car. It would be much easier to have a case that had mini basketballs, a swatch catalog and even mini sneakers.

Yes there are souvenir mini bats, gloves and so on that are just that miniatures. But I have seen salesmen sample boxes that contained mini bats and baseballs sell at auctions so I don't think you can rule all of them out completely either.

As for my basketball I only showed one picture but will include a few others. The lines are actually grooves you can feel and should be able to pick up in the additional pictures. You can also make out the inflation hole and wording. I don't think I would inflate it to 7-9 pounds though. This was probably one of the first generation all rubber basketballs too.

Not everybody sold road graders, cars or stoves. I think applying the all samples need to be like these is crazy. Either way this is probably my favorite basketball item I own.