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Aaannd another panama!

Hemingway Jones

I'll Lock Up
Bartender
Messages
6,099
Location
Acton, Massachusetts
Geeze Henry, I hate to disappoint you, but that is a great hat, but it is not a REAL Panama. It is a Milan Weave hat. I have a Dobbs 5th Ave made of this same material. They are great hats, but they are no where near Panamas in what they are; they are entirely different hats.

Sorry, but it is worth way more than what you paid. I love those and that one is super clean and nice.

Enjoy.
 

Twitch

My Mail is Forwarded Here
Messages
3,133
Location
City of the Angels
Oh yeah. Looks to be in good conditions and worth the amount. I got my 1st Panama this year followed by a couple others to rotate. Going to classic car events in Southern Cal I have noticed many men wearing Panamas in the summer where they don't wear felt fedoras in other seasons though.[huh]
 

BigSho

Vendor
Messages
156
Location
Chicago
panama

Hemingway Jones said:
Geeze Henry, I hate to disappoint you, but that is a great hat, but it is not a REAL Panama. It is a Milan Weave hat. I have a Dobbs 5th Ave made of this same material. They are great hats, but they are no where near Panamas in what they are; they are entirely different hats.

QUOTE]


Just because a hat is a panama doesnt mean it is of a good quaility. I have pamanas that are $45 retail and i have ones that are $250. panama only refers to where the straw comes from... that being ecuador. i also have many milan straws that are just as nice or better than many panamas.
 

Visigoth

A-List Customer
Messages
458
Location
Rome
On the other hand, that's a bitchin' Milan. Frank Sinatra would have worn it with pride.
 

Hemingway Jones

I'll Lock Up
Bartender
Messages
6,099
Location
Acton, Massachusetts
BigSho said:
Hemingway Jones said:
Geeze Henry, I hate to disappoint you, but that is a great hat, but it is not a REAL Panama. It is a Milan Weave hat. I have a Dobbs 5th Ave made of this same material. They are great hats, but they are no where near Panamas in what they are; they are entirely different hats.

Just because a hat is a panama doesnt mean it is of a good quaility. I have pamanas that are $45 retail and i have ones that are $250. panama only refers to where the straw comes from... that being ecuador. i also have many milan straws that are just as nice or better than many panamas.
You are, of course, the foremost authority of your own opinion. ;)
Rather than debate the relative merits of Panama Hats over Milan weave hats of which there are volumes within this forum, and to brush aside your presumption of pointing out the obvious differences to me, I would suggest you reread my post and see that I took great pains to not make a judgement between them, and that I thought that my good friend The real Henry here was looking for a Panama and I did not want him to be disappointed. As it turns out, it was merely a collective term he was using to apply to all straw hats.

I congratulated him then and I congratulate him now on a very nice hat. Bravo Henry. Post pics when you get it. :)
 

The real Henry

Practically Family
Messages
512
Location
Löhne, Germany
That you thought to give an advice, was for sure a good thing and I thank you for that! I'm actually new into straw hats, because I just wore felt ones till now. I just thought "panama" was the word for a straw fedora, as it is in German.


Regards,

Henrik!
 

Twitch

My Mail is Forwarded Here
Messages
3,133
Location
City of the Angels
Henry absolutely no one you encounter will be able to tell the difference between your hat and a $250 one. The likelyhood of that is near zero. Just for the record I wouldn't pay anything like that for a hat. There's too many bargains on Ebay. Also that's about 77 gallons of gas these days @ $3.25 per gallon:eek:
 

feltfan

My Mail is Forwarded Here
Messages
3,190
Location
Oakland, CA, USA
Twitch said:
Henry absolutely no one you encounter will be able to tell the difference between your hat and a $250 one. The likelyhood of that is near

In this day and age, it is my hope that we aren't wearing
vintage hats in order to impress the sadly uninformed public.
It's nice when people recognize a quality hat and it would
be nice to think that wearing good hats raises the public's
standards, but...

I don't know about everyone else, but I could care less
what a stranger thinks of my hat. Nice if he or she enjoys
it. I know what it is and I enjoy it.

Twitch said:
zero. Just for the record I wouldn't pay anything like that for a hat. There's too many bargains on Ebay. Also that's about 77 gallons of gas these days @ $3.25 per gallon:eek:

Fascinating. I have dozens of hats and no car myself.

I'd be thrilled to pay $250 or more for a hat from Art Fawcett
or PanamaBob and hope to do so some day soon. I'd be happy
to pay that for certain vintage hats, too. Many are of a quality
far above that price.

To bring this back to the subject at hand, does anyone know
how Milan weave hats are made? Is it a machine weave? Is it
handmade? They're a mystery to me.
 

squid

One of the Regulars
Messages
178
Location
Florida
feltfan said:
To bring this back to the subject at hand, does anyone know
how Milan weave hats are made? Is it a machine weave? Is it
handmade? They're a mystery to me.

From what I have seen/believe to be true the straw is woven into a strip that is then sewn into a spiral in the shape of a hat. Imagine laying a strip of cloth on the desk, working it into a flat spiral, and sewing one continuous seam through the overlapping edges. I hope that's not too confusing.

The quality difference seems to be, at least partially, in the woven strip of straw. The hat I just bought is made of a strip 3 to 4 mm in width. If you go to Wal-Mart and look at a hat constructed in the same way it will most likely be made from a strip a cm in width of course straw. I have no idea if the straw is hand woven, but I imagine the sewing is done by machine.

Someone correct me if I am wrong.
 

BigSho

Vendor
Messages
156
Location
Chicago
I have an old biltmore somewhere that i think says something about their milan being derived from hemp. But then i am pretty sure that some of the newer one like the dobbs and the stetson milans are man made fibers.

Jeremy
http://www.hats-plus.com

P.S. I apologize Mr. Hemingway Jones that response was from my little brother. He is 20 so tends to think he knows evreything. I just have to remember to not leave all my passwords on auto login.
 

Flitcraft

One Too Many
Messages
1,037
The Real Henry

Like the new lid. Good score, Man!
I'd keep the red band- its something different.
 

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