Any MLB HAT / CAP experts here???

[xpress34]

Re: Any MLB HAT / CAP experts here???

Jim -

Thanks for the info. It definately adds some credence to my thought that possibly KM Pro / McAullife / Leslie were all one in the same....

So, I'm guessing you no longer own the cap with Leslie in the Ball on the tag? If you do, I would be ever so grateful if you would take a close up of the tag and post here or send to me. If not, I would love to see better close ups of your other two tags and sweatband stamps.

I can tell from the one cap that it is a 65-70 Angels - can't miss the 'Halo' embroidery... I have one, with no tags and no stamps in it (pics below) but I am kicking myself that I just missed a KM Pro one on eBay last week...

I am also writing New Era to see if I can get them to possibly offer up more insight as to their dealings with McAuliffe/KM Pro/Leslie/Wilson before they quit doing the Private Label work and became the ONLY Official MLB hat...





And here are pics of my Yankees KM Pro:





All the best -

Chris

[cohibasmoker]

Re: Any MLB HAT / CAP experts here???

Hi - maybe I can add some information that may or may not help. I've seen two styles of Tim McAuliffe/KM Pro cap labels. There may be others but the below styles are the only styles that I've ever owned.

The first style has a logo of a white baseball that had Tim McAuliffe and the Boston Address in red thread inside the baseball. The border of the label was blue. The label does NOT have a zip code next to the Boston address. All of the caps I had with this style of label all had a KM Pro Stamp on the sweatband.

The second style also has a baseball style logo except, Pro KM Cap is in blue thread and the border was white. This label has a zip code along with the Boston address.

A third label that I had was a white label, exactly like the KM Pro Label but Leslie was also inside the baseball logo. I owned one of these and this style was inside a Pirates cap. I have NEVER seen another one on any other cap.

Zip codes were unofficially added in 1963 and officially added in 1967. When did Tim McAuliffe/KM Pro officially change their tags to reflect the new zip code I don't know? Did they redesign the labels when they added the zip code to the Boston Address? I don't know that either.

I have attached a scan of the two labels I am talking about. Unfortunately, I do not have the tag of the KM Pro cap with the Leslie addition to it.

Hope this helps,

Jim

[xpress34]

Any MLB HAT / CAP experts here???

I have gone more towards Cap collecting over Jerseys or Bats recently as they tend to be one of the more scarce items to obtain since most players wear the same hat for the better part of the season while going through a dozen or so jerseys and probably a couple dozen or so bats.

Outside of the 'Special' Caps (Opening Day, Memorial/Indepence/Labor Day, All Star Game and Playoffs) and Home/Road/Alt, players usually use maybe 6 or so caps a year (on average) - before the Special caps, John Wetteland was known to wear just 1 or 2 caps in a season...

Anyway, all of that aside, I have procured a few caps recently, but two really got my attention...

1st - a plain Green Wool cap. The Cap itself is nothing special, but the Insert Card (still intact) certainly is:







Notice that is says 'Milliners to the Majors" and they are from BOSTON

The 2nd Hat is a little more amazing a New Old Stock SF Giants hat from KM Pro (also from Boston) that is MINT and ALSO with a MINT insert:







Notice that is too says "Milliner to the Majors"

I have been doing my research and I know that KM Pro (also relabeled for the Tim McAuliffe Co. of Boston) provided hats to the Majors for a number of years, but not to retail.

I also know that New Era did PRIVATE LABEL work (meaning they made the hats and LABELED them for KM and McAuliffe) for a number of years as well.

What I am looking for is a solid history on Tim McAuliffe Co., KM Pro and The Leslie Co. - ALL of Boston.

Where they ALL three one in the same? Did they ALL three make hats for the Pros - just different teams at each company?

The Leslie Hat and insert I can date pre '69 - lists the Senators, but no Expos and no Pilots and the KM Pro insert is no earlier than 1969 as that was the year that MLB introduced it's logo - and probably 1970 or later as I believe it's use in 1969 all included the 100th Anniversary tag line underneath the logo.

I welcome any and all input... and YES, the SF Giants hat is a s clean and MINT as it appears...

- Chris

[dodgerbats]

Re: Any HAT/CAP Experts in the house?

Hop on eBay and look up "timsbatsncaps". He's the person that I always go to on hat / cap concerns.
I feel that he is one of the best, if not the best, in this field. The very nice person to deal with also.

Mark

[xpress34]

Any HAT/CAP Experts in the house?

I'm looking for info on the following TWO manufacturers...

Leslie - 'Millners to the Majors'

KM Pro / Tim McAuliffe (Boston)

I have a Green Wool 'BLANK' Hat from Leslie that has an AWESOME Original Cardboard Insert in it still that claims they make (or rather made) hats for MLB

I also have a VINTAGE (50's / 60's) Yankees GU KM Pro / Tim Mcauliffe Cap

I have heard that New Era used to make 'Private Label' Hats for McAuliffe, Stall & Dean, etc as well as making 'Private Label' hats for Spalding and Wilson as well.

I had also read somewhere that New Era also bought up McAuliffe, KM Pro and a few others on their way to becoming the King of Caps.

I have verified from a few closed auctions that Mears has verified that KM Pro was the exclusive manufacturer of game caps for the Yankees and the Red Sox from the late 50's through the early 70's.

I would love some more info. Considering sending the Yankees hat to Mears for authentication. I only have $225 into it - every authenticated Yankees GU I have seen from this period (regardless of player) has sold for nearly $3,500 and up... this one also happens to have a nice '7' written under the bill - if it does turn out to be one of the Mick's, it could be worth over $50,000.00... the story behind it is that it is from the 1968 season - Mick's last year...

I'll post pics of it and the cardboard insert later...

All help is appreciated...

- Chris

[kingjammy24]

Re: New Era Caps

i haven't really delved into it. i just remember my own personal experience of trying to date new era caps from the 90s and my own empirical evidence was that the diamond collection tag come out around 1991. as for the wilkerson cap, #19 was worn by hector villanueva in 1991. maybe it's not really a wilkerson or maybe i'm wrong. i haven't done enough research to be 100% confident. 1990 or 1991 are close enough for either me to be wrong or for that cap to be a villaneuva.

rudy.

[bronx_burner]

Re: New Era Caps

Oh I don't disagree that the tags were not being used in 87. Just noted that they seemed to have come up with that term in 86 according to the site.

Looking at those Mears caps, the first thing that pops out to me is that all the caps pre 1994 had green under the brim and that all 94 and after had gray. I think it reasons that somewhere around that time is when it changed.

As for the use of the diamond collection tag, if you assume those caps to be legit, then the Curtis Wilkerson Cubs cap they have listed shows the diamond collection tag. Wilkerson was a Cub in 89 and 90 only. So if the hat is legit, it seems the Diamond collection tag was out by at latest 1990

[kingjammy24]

Re: New Era Caps

from their site, it sounds like '86 is when they secured the "official" MLB contract. i guarantee you new era caps from '87 didn't have the "diamond collection" tag. in 1990 and 1991, for example, rawlings was the official supplier of jerseys for MLB. no rawlings jerseys had the "diamond collection" logo or moniker.

mears has a bunch of caps you could take a look at to see variations in tagging, brim color, etc:

http://www.mearsonline.com/forsale/results/?page=2&cat=4&subcat=17

not sure how accurate the dating is on some of them but it's still something to look at.

rudy.

[bronx_burner]

Re: New Era Caps

Interesting. I did think that the colors may have gone back and forth after gray began being used but I'm relatively certain that at one point in time, green was the only color, I'm just not sure when that exclusiveness ended.

The cap in question does have the Diamond collection tag. I checked out New Era's site and found this history page...

http://www2.neweracap.com/category/14/About_New_Era/page/119/HISTORY.aspx

According to their timeline the diamond collection began being used in 1986 for teams they provided the hats for (not sure if that means they used the tag yet though). scrolling forward, I see that 1993 was the year they secured rights to produce the on field hats for all teams. Continuing even further, shows that the New Era "flag" logo was introduced in 1997. And that's as much as I'm going to need with this hat as it does have that logo tag. So this cap is at its oldest a 1997. Oh well...

[kingjammy24]

Re: New Era Caps

if it's a cap from 1990, then it shouldn't have the "diamond collection" tag. the "diamond collection" moniker included a group of manufacturers (official licensees) that made "official" on-field apparel. russell used it when they first began supplying the jerseys in 1992. new era, i believe, used it for the first time in 1991 on their caps. almost every piece of clothing worn by the players, by various manufacturers, eventually got the "diamond collection" tag including helmets and batting gloves. the only manufacturers who didn't use the "diamond collection" tag were those not officially licensed by MLB as suppliers, such as wilson, AIS, goodman. items from these manufacturers were still worn by various players but these manufacturers didn't have an official licensing deal like russell, new era, ABC.

rudy.

[kingjammy24]

Re: New Era Caps

i've looked at this issue in the past and while i don't have any hard facts, my own experience was that brim color wasn't attributable to a specific time period. in any given year various teams wore various colors. as well, i saw individual teams change brim colors from one year to the next, going from green to gray and back to green. i also saw black. it didn't seem like a move from new era because if you'll look at any given year, many of the teams wore different brim colors. there didn't seem to be any logic or pattern to it. the only thing you can do is look at what color a specific team wore in a specific year. i'm not sure if i saw different brim colors for a single team in a single year but i may have and it wouldn't be surprising.

rudy.

[bronx_burner]

Anyone know when they changed from green under the bill to gray? Looking at a cap purported to be used in 1990 but has gray under the bill and I'm thinking they still used green at the time. Any help would be appreciated.