I know Art Fawcett works on panama hats. He used to do work with Panama bob, back in the day. So check out his and PanamaBobs threads to check out his work.
I don't know if it's a universal issue, but it does appear to be fairly common. The true size of any vintage hat is really only as good as someone's ability to measure it properly, and a lot of people either don't know how to do that or won't take the time to do it. Any hat can shrink over time if it hasn't been properly cared for, so size tags can't always be trusted. Accurately measuring the inner circumference of a hat's sweatband is possibly the best way to determine it's size, but that method doesn't give any idea of the hat's ovality (i.e., regular oval, long oval, extra long oval, wide oval) the way the method described by Bamaboots above does. So buying a vintage hat online is almost always going to be a bit of a gamble, and the less the seller knows about hats, the bigger the risk. EvilBay sellers run the entire range of the spectrum from responsible people who deal with hats regularly, to people who got a few hats because dear old Grandad died and they have no idea what they have or what to do with them and are hoping to make a few bucks by selling them. On the other hand, sometimes a great deal can be had by buying from someone in the latter group because they happen to have a rare/in demand vintage hat, don't know what it's really worth, listed it at a "lowball" price, and no one else was willing to take the risk.
A buddy of mine just had Vince repair a vintage derby hat and is having him shape an open crown Akubra at the moment. He is still in business.
You are very welcome. I think phone is the only way to contact him.
That's a great suggestion! I'm not wild about the colors brown and turquoise, but maybe there's another color? Brown might work...
Thanks Jared. Looks like lots of nice hemp options, which I hadn't been thinking about. The Bristol looks particularly interesting.
