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- Sep 28, 2010
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Quick Summary
Pros: Very similar design to Grant gloves
High quality metallic red leather
Good wrist support
Cons: Terrible quality control (read review/see pics)
Padding protrudes visibly through the leather over the backhand/fingers
Overly stiff thumb padding keeps your thumb too straight
Pros: Very similar design to Grant gloves
High quality metallic red leather
Good wrist support
Cons: Terrible quality control (read review/see pics)
Padding protrudes visibly through the leather over the backhand/fingers
Overly stiff thumb padding keeps your thumb too straight
Ordering
https://www.valourstrike.com/products/pro-vintage-leather-boxing-gloves
I bought these gloves in 16oz from the above link at the beginning of December (it's now the end of February as I write this). At the time, they were selling for £70 on the website. The price has now gone up. I used the voucher code "IN10" to take 10% off and shipping within the UK was free, meaning I paid £63 total for the gloves. I got a tracking number email and received the gloves in a couple working days.
Initial Impression
In the picture above, you can see the size/profile of the glove when compared with 16oz Ring To Cage C17 2.0 and 12oz Winning gloves. I have made alterations to the thumbs in the pictures above. You can see a picture of what they look like brand new further down.
Out of the box, the metallic red leather feels supple and has a nice genuine leather smell to it. It has proven durable and doesn't wrinkle or blemish as much as the Ring to Cage metallic gold (the only other full metallic leather gloves I've ever owned). It looks very good in person too. Just going off what I've seen online, it seems to have a similar appearance to the metallic red that Sabas uses. @sryan79 said it's similar to UMA gloves.
They are pretty obviously Grant clones with the design. It has the same triple cuff and the padding used along the cuff of the gloves has a very similar feel. It provides good wrist support and the gloves generally have a nice shape to them with balanced weight distribution. They also use the same kind of rough canvas lining that Grant gloves have, which I personally dislike. I'd prefer if it was a regular polyester/satin kind of lining. The lining dries quickly. They also have welted seams, like Grants.
A multi-layered latex foam padding is used over the striking area. The padding throughout is stiff although it has softened up a bit. I think they could be used for sparring but they definitely wouldn't be the friendliest sparring gloves. I remember Grant gloves as being slightly softer and generally more malleable too although it has been several years since I had a pair. It has good protection and pop when used on the bags.
The left hand glove weighed 15.6oz and the right hand glove weighed 15.8oz.
Problems
Through the first month of using these gloves and physically manipulating them at home to try and break them in, I noticed the following points:
- The lining ripped immediately at the fingertips in both gloves, so my fingers are now pressed directly onto the leather.
- I then undid the laces and opened the glove up and there were rips along the lining further down in the gloves too, exposing the foam:
Valour Strike through Facebook said that this was part of the design, which is bizarre.
- The lining and attached foam wasn't attached to the leather of the glove properly at the tips of either thumb.
- The foam padding over the backhand and fingertips begins to protrude visibly through the leather, as I've tried to show below. I consider this just to be a minor aesthetic fault:
- I found the thumbs in both gloves to be very uncomfortable. Everyone has different hand shapes etc so that might not be the case for others, and a friend tried them on and seemed to think they were fine. A single-sheet foam is used over the thumbs and, for my hands at least, it was very oppressive as it doesn't let me bend my thumb in forming a fist. I couldn't do anything to break it in and make the thumb comfortable for myself, and so, with all the lining rips and it not being stitched properly at the tips of the thumbs, I ended up just yanking out all of the foam/lining at the thumbs and this alleviated things greatly for me, and made it much more comfortable. I cut the thumb attachments too, as it was very slightly too short on one hand for me.
- The stitching along the welted seam where the base of the thumb meets the cuff has popped out:
Considering all these issues, I contacted Valour Strike and was sent a replacement without needing to return my first pair.
Problems with the second pair
The replacement pair I received has many obvious defects, and is worse than the first pair.
Its problems are the following:
- The left hand glove is 14.5oz and the right hand glove is 15.5oz.
- The left hand glove has a blob of misshapen padding poking through near the pinky knuckle:
- The lining isn't stitched properly at the fingertips on the left hand glove.
- The lining and attached foam wasn't attached to the leather of the right hand glove properly at the tip of the thumb, like how both gloves were in the first pair.
- Both gloves have rips in the lining on the inside of the glove near the thumb entrance and its opposite side, like the first pair.
- The foam padding over the backhand protrudes visibly through the leather like the first pair.
There's also less room for my long fingers in the second pair than the first, and they're generally tighter fitting and the thumb is more uncomfortable for me. For that reason I've not bothered trying to use them and will just give them a friend.
I told Valour Strike about these issues but I said that I didn't want a replacement pair. I think they would've sent me another one though if I'd asked for it, but I lost faith in getting a pair that I'd like so I just didn't bother.
Verdict
The price is appealing, as Grant-like gloves like New Sporting (which are maybe just Grants in a different logo) or Sabas Prime gloves cost nearly twice as much for the UK market as these do. But, the quality control is very poor.
I think these have the potential to be good gloves if not for the very poor quality control, and maybe the thumbs. It's possible others might like the thumb, for me though they're the second most uncomfortable thumb in a pair of 16oz boxing gloves that I've ever experienced, after Cleto Reyes training gloves.
I personally would not recommend this pair of gloves, based on my experiences detailed above.
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