BMH: Location of Center Labels

[joelsabi]

Hi Brian,

In another thread, Jetefan shared his fine collection of Mattingly Bat. All the LVS bats are the same length. However the center labels are not all equidistant from the knob. Also the distance between the center label and the barrel stamp are not uniform either. This may be a stupid question but what other variable would make this occur?

Also which statement(s) below would be true.

1) All bats from the same player, same model, same length and the same order would have the same location of the center label and barrel stamp.

2) All bats from the same player, same model, same lengthand the same year would have the same location of the center label and barrel stamp

I am not sure how these bats a precisely made and whether certain settings of the machine would allow any uniformity on the location the center labels and barrel stamp.

I know bat collectors say that all bats are unique but i thought they were only talking about the grains on the bat.


Thanks in advance for you reply

Regards,

Joel

PS. Is there any reference book that would have answered these type of question for me?

[joelsabi]

Here is the photo of Jetefan's Mattingly bat collection.

[BMH]

Rules for logo placement were not put into effect until 2003. All CB's are supposed to be 18in from the knob and all EB's are 2.5in from the end of the bat.

Before that you put the logo on the easiest place you could find. It varied with who ever branded the bats. One worker might prefer the high spot, the other worker, the lower placement.

[joelsabi]

Rules for logo placement were not put into effect until 2003. All CB's are supposed to be 18in from the knob and all EB's are 2.5in from the end of the bat.

Before that you put the logo on the easiest place you could find. It varied with who ever branded the bats. One worker might prefer the high spot, the other worker, the lower placement.

Thanks Brian for the reply,

So for pre-2003 bats, did the worker put the brand on manually or was it a setting on a branding machine? I imagine if it's a machine setting all the bats from single order would all have uniform logo placements.

Are either of these statement below true?

1) All bats from the same player, same model, same length and the same order would have the same location of the center label and barrel stamp.

2) All bats from the same player, same model, same lengthand the same year would have the same location of the center label and barrel stamp

I am thinking statement 1 may be true if it is a machine setting. I am thinking statement 2 may be false since more than 1 worker could work on a certain players bat over the course of a given year.



thanks in advance again.

Joel

[BMH]

All of our branding machines would be set by hand. I would say that bats in the same order would be the same unless the brander was having trouble with the brand coming in. Then he would move it's placement to have it come in better.

[JETEFAN]

Let's make it simple, pre 2003, bats from the same batch and order can have different branding placement..........................

[joelsabi]

Let's make it simple, pre 2003, bats from the same batch and order can have different branding placement..........................

fair enough. was this a helpful question to you bat collectors or did you already know this?

[JETEFAN]

fair enough. was this a helpful question to you bat collectors or did you already know this?

Joel,

Great question, and helpful to bat collectors. I used to wonder about this also and researched it a few years ago. Came up with the same explaination Brian gave us. Post 2003 much more consistant even though you can still find some slight differences in branding positioning.

George