Belgian Motorcycle Gloves, Leather, Surplus

Holy moly! Proper old-school biker gloves from leather with a decent price tag! Too good to be true? Well, kind of. Do read on.

Somewhere in Belgium, a stash of brown and black motorcycle riding gloves were stashed for decades. The brown ones are older, the stampings suggesting them to be manufactured in the 50s or even earlier. The black ones are from around the 60s. In addition to riding any two-wheeled vehicle, these gloves are suitable to be carried into many kinds of adventures and times.

The brown option

These are lined with wool and the cuffs are reinforced. The details and condition vary with some being quite stiff and others more supple. May or may not have tightening tabs. The rare pair may be unused, but don't expect them to appear new.

Big attention! The brown gloves are not for the faint of heart! Even in the best case, these smell like an old storage room and may have traces of mold on the surface. The cotton threads are 60 years old and may crap out at stress points such as the thumb seam.

The black ones

Black gloves are a safer bet if you find brown to be too steam punkish for you but they are also in a less horrible state and more uniform in appearance. Most often, these do not have tightening tabs.

These also have a grandma's basement smell to them, though not as strong as the brown ones.

Conditioning back to life

Any visible mold can be brushed off and some white vinegar from a spray bottle to the surface kills what you can't see. Do the brushing outdoors to avoid spreading spores inside your home and let the vinegar do its job for two hours.

It's likely that just one treatment is not quite enough to remove all of the smell. Repeated vinegar treatment, cleaning with a sponge and gall soap, and treating with leather oil or grease will do the trick with enough time.

The seams are designed to be repaired easily. A small needle and thick thread is a good combo to weave through the original holes. It helps if you have the patience of a cow and fingers of a gynecologist.

Belgian army surplus

Yeah, it's like this sometimes. We won't be getting more of these.