One of main identifying features of vintage base ball is wearing reproductions of accurate period uniforms.  Unfortunately, while vintage base ball has become more established and grown over the past decade, there are still some significant holes in almost every team's uniform presentation.

 

Belts are especially problematic.  In the early 1880's, belts had a much more prominent role in defining a team's look.  The belts were very wide, usually around two and a half inches, and worn higher than we do today, around the midriff rather than sitting over the hips.  In this period, the belts were made from fabric webbing in a solid color, with a metal buckle or single or double mounted leather straps.

 

The big problem with reproducing these belts is that you can't find 2.5" cotton webbing.  It isn't a standard width.  So instead you need to use canvas or a similar fabric to sew a fabric belt.  This is not, by the way, unprecedented for the period.  They had canvas belts.  If you have to dye the fabric, that's another non-trivial step.  Then you need to either learn to sew leather or find someone who can.

 

After a year of experimenting, the Grays seem to have hit on the right formula, with the help of Bruce at Lincoln Shoe Repair in Cranston. 

 

 

 

This belt is based on one from the 1884 Spalding Guide.  In fact, we just scanned the illustration from an advertisement and blew it up to full size to use as a pattern.  The belt design is never perfectly clear in any of the extant pictures of the Grays, but it is definitely single strap, with a roughly pentagonal mount, so if it wasn't exactly like this belt, it was very close.  The leather loop is a particularly nice touch, which we couldn't identify in the drawing until Bruce figured it out while looking at some similar belts in the exellent Barry Harper Collection catalog.

 

 

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