Post New Hats Here!

[humanshoes]

Thanks, Al. He'll only have to look at it to get it dirty, but hey, it's what the man wanted.

 

[Landman]

Beautiful hat humanshoes. Great job!

 

[DOGMAN]

humanshoes,very nice.Joao here is the thoroughbred 10x

 

[Joao Encarnado]

humanshoes,very nice.Joao here is the thoroughbred 10x

WOW! Nice color. Sadly you trimmed it.

 

[John Galt]

Joao, Thoroughbred are good hats as far as I'm concerned. I know they were built by Langenberg at one point, but don't know if it was just Langenberg. Check out that thread, you'll see it on the poster of Langenberg brands.

 

[John Galt]

A new hat for a good friend, fresh off the block from my fledging hat making enterprise. This one is rabbit fur in alabaster with a vintage southern pecan petersham ribbon. View attachment 15995 View attachment 15996 View attachment 15997 View attachment 15998 View attachment 15999 View attachment 16000

Great job! Another amateur gone pro, I love it! You did very well on the sweatband flaring.

 

[John Galt]

yes the hat was called the boss of the plains. In the book that i have about the history of stetson. Supposedly one night while with a bunch of horsemen he dug a hole in the dirt, and shaped the crown of the hat in the hole and from their the boss of the plains was made. He wanted a hat that would keep the sun off of those out in the elements.
Now i could be wrong but this is what i've read. Most people think that old west hats were large brimmed hats. They weren't, they were actually top hats, homburgs, and derbys, until the boss of the plains.

I have read a lot about this. My understanding is that after selling the first cowboy hat, JB Stetson returned East and made gentleman's hats with little success, and that it was not until he sent out free samples of the Boss of the Plains and demanded a high price for the unique hat he had created, that he really had success. This topic is discussed in detail elsewhere in this forum.

 

[TheDane]

I also read somewhere, that it was actually British Christy's, that made the first wide brimmed hat of that design, and that JBS lost a lawsuit and had to pay license to Christy's. Whether it's true or not, I don't know, but it's an interesting story

 

[John Galt]

I read the same.

 

[mayserwegener]

There were German and Austrian hats that had a similar look and were earlier. Hecker (led the failed Baden Revolution) wore such a hat and he came to America in the 1850s.

 

[humanshoes]

Thanks for the encouraging words, gentlemen. Be a long time before I even begin to think of myself as a pro, JG. Maybe more like the mythical "barefoot hatter" that I've seen referred to elsewhere in these pages. As for the sweatband (one of JW's by the way), it should be good, you showed me how to do it.

 

[Brad Bowers]

I also read somewhere, that it was actually British Christy's, that made the first wide brimmed hat of that design, and that JBS lost a lawsuit and had to pay license to Christy's. Whether it's true or not, I don't know, but it's an interesting story

Ah, you have to be skeptical to be an historian. The story is almost certainly false. If you Google the story, every single website quotes it almost verbatim. I dug to the bottom of it by contacting Professor Moore a few years ago - the very same gentleman from the Internet stories. He informed me that he came across the information in the Christys archives in the 1970s, on a handwritten scrap of paper. That's the sole source for the story. Since then, his researchers have been unable to find a court case in the U.K. involving Stetson and Christys, and I have been unable to find a court case in the U.S. Additionally, the handwritten scrap of paper has mysteriously disappeared from the Christys archives, Moore told me. In any case, it would be hard to get a design patent on a low-crown, wide-brimmed hat, considering similar hats had been around for centuries.

I also believe the tale of Stetson making and selling a hat while traveling in Colorado in the 1860s to be very suspect. First, the only source for the story is what John B. himself said. I understand the process of making hats, even using non-mechanized, century-old methods, and the idea of him making one in the wild, while not impossible, seems unlikely and so the story is probably apocryphal. Mythbusters should check this one out! Second, hats with wide brims and low crowns weren't unknown to people in Colorado in the 1860s. The cowboys that came up after the Civil War would have certainly been familiar with that style of hat, though they really didn't arrive until after the Civil War, and after Stetson is said to have been here. Many of the miners at the time were from the South, having come from the Georgia gold fields. Wide-brim slouch hats were pretty common there, too. In short, the idea that Stetson made a hat on the plains of Colorado and found a willing buyer who was so enamored with it that he would pay dearly seems too farfetched. There were plenty of stores in the mining camps and in the towns along the Front Range in the 1860s to buy hats. What I do believe is that John B. Stetson came to Colorado and saw a great potential market out west for hats, and became very good at marketing. The South and the West were his best customers. I searched a number of years ago in Colorado newspapers of the era, and the first mentions I can find of Stetson hats being sold in Colorado stores was in the 1880s. It doesn't mean it didn't happen earlier, though.

I probably sound like a curmudgeon, but sometimes that's the role a historian must play.

Brad

 

[tonyb]

Well, John B told me the story hisself, Brad. You callin' my old buddy a liar, you over-edumacated collitch kid, you?!

 

[Brad Bowers]

Them's fightin' words!

 

[Joao Encarnado]

Joao, Thoroughbred are good hats as far as I'm concerned. I know they were built by Langenberg at one point, but don't know if it was just Langenberg. Check out that thread, you'll see it on the poster of Langenberg brands.

I'll search it. Thanks.

As far as wide brimmed hats, they were used in Europe before J.B. Stetson.

 

[TheDane]

Thanks Brad, I would have wondered, if you hadn't been to the bottom of this

I included my "truth-disclaimer" for a reason. I hear all the time, that it's so easy to learn to programme and work with web from the web itself. As a programmer and web-developer I know, that it takes a trained professional to dig out the articles and tutorials, that are not packed with incorrect hearsay, misunderstandings, omissions and serious errors. Most articles are written by amateurs, who read some articles/tuts and found themselves knowing enough to teach others. And some of the most popular and visited "educational" sites are the worst!

We shouldn't forget, that while the new-found ease of publication has provided us with an era of information - it has also provided us with an era of misinformation. It's not, that there aren't holes in the bullsh*t out there ... they are just sometimes very hard to find

Thanks for clearing up the matter, Brad. Actually a pity! I kind of liked the story - and it fit so well with the fact, that CIA kept Lee H. Oswald hidden away in a desert camp, until he was sent to Abbottabad to kill Bin Laden. Just in time, as Mr. Laden was about to reveal, that it actually was Elvis who killed JFK and his brother. Oh yeah ... if people only knew ...!!! lol

 

[mayserwegener]

By the way this is the Hecker hat (1840s).

http://germanaustrianhats.invisionzone.com/index.php?/topic/176-heckerhut-hecker-hat-1848/page__pid__997#entry997

The largest immigration to the US West (1840-90) was German so such (large brim / tall crown) soft felt hats were not unknown to them (check the map below).

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/09/02/article-2408591-1B95A350000005DC-125_964x720.jpg

 

[Brad Bowers]

Ole - you're right, fighting misinformation on the Internet is like putting out a forest fire with a garden hose. We do what we can to set the record straight, but it's almost a losing battle. Like fighting the myth that JFK killed hat-wearing, a myth perpetrated by hat manufacturers themselves. We'll never get the record straight on that one.

mayserwegener - excellent point! More evidence for my hypothesis.

Brad

 

[g.durand]

Stetson Stratoliner, early to mid-'40s based on the price tag, size label, crest, etc. It's in great condition and the sweatband is soft, pliable and appears almost new. Unlined, with no crown tip, it appears to have never had either. Compared to post-War Stetsons the felt is less dense and the pouncing is courser, but it is easily shaped and re-shaped. All of these lead me to believe it was produced when fur and other materials were scarce due to wartime restrictions, and is typical of the entry level hat it was at the time.

 

[carouselvic]

very nice- c.1940