Vintage Caps

[perezfan]

Originally Posted by DirtyT

Mark and Chris, that is some great information! Thank you both.

I am curious, how often do caps from HOF level players of the 20s and 30s come up for sale?

I noticed that with pre-1940 caps many of them have the player’s name sewn into the inside band similar to jerseys which is very nice. However it appears that this practice stopped sometime in the 50s.

It seems like it would be pretty risky to purchase a cap from a HOF level player when the only evidence to go off of is the player’s uniform number written in marker under the brim no?

Very true. Mears will quite often authenticate them with just the number written under the brim. Of course they'll also verify that the tagging, size, manufacturer, etc. are all correct for the era. Sometimes they'll even state that the writing under the brim is a known style.

But to me there's still a leap of faith to make the attribution. Especially with Caps of high-profile players.

As for the other stuff... Yes, late 1940s - early 50s is the time-frame that the embroidered players' names had disappeared from the sweat bands. And bonafide Caps of 1920s - 30s star players rarely surface. I agree that jerseys from that era turn up more frequently than caps for some odd reason.