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I succumbed to selfishness and bought yet another Open Road, a very nice light-gray one that had been in a local "antique" (read "mostly junk") store for at least the several months that I was aware of its presence there. Over my three or four visits I watched the hat become less and less clean and more and more misshapen, which I attributed to browsers grabbing it by the crown with their grubby hands. The tag said $90, ND. The young woman minding the store told me, on one of my previous visits, that "ND" means "no discounts." So I figured I would let the holiday season come and go and see if they had marked it down. Nope, they hadn't, so I asked how long they were going to leave that hat to further deteriorate (stacked up with a couple of other, less-desirable lids) before they entertained offers. She said, "OK, make an offer." I said, "45 bucks." She got on the phone with the dealer (apparently this shop is some sort of dealers' cooperative) to extend my offer. She reminded the seller that the hat had been in the shop for quite a spell. She then said, with the phone to her ear, "How 'bout 55?" So I bought it, thinking all along that I should have offered 35.
Took it home, dunked it in naptha and put it on the stretcher (it was about a size too small for me). Once it dried it was still a tad snug so I sprayed some shoe-stretching juice on the sweatband and plain water on the felt and ribbon and stretched it out some more. It fits fine now, but the wind string button came out with a little bit of rust staining. What made this all the worse is that this particular button has a miniature gold-colored metal Stetson logo (the one with the beaver and the eagle and the shield) affixed to the covering. Can't recall ever seeing another quite like it. I figure the rust staining was due to the water oxidizing the button's metal innards and then transfering that little bit of rust to the cloth covering. (I know, I know, I should have removed the string from around the crown and let it dangle. Live and learn.) I wanted to kick myself, until I remembered once buying some rust-stain remover for cloth. I spotted the magic potion at a humble general store (that has since gone out of business) and used it to remove rust spots from a light-colored shirt with metal buttons. That was a decade or more ago.
The local Safeway carries a product called Whink Rust Stain Remover for All Colorfast Fabrics. A 10-ounce bottle (a lifetime supply, it would seem) costs $4.69. The upshot is that it worked great. A couple of drops removed the stains without affecting the color, as best my eyes can tell. And yes, this time I removed the string from around the base of the crown before carrying out the procedure.
The hat looks great now, very nearly good as new. It has the brown leather sweatband but the gold in the embossed parts has all but worn off. You gotta look closely to see the three X's at the front and the Stetson logo on the left side. There is no store label embossed on the sweatband. The liner, of the style with the cowboy and his horse, is so pristine that I suspect it could be a relatively recent replacement. The felt (a bluish-gray) and the ribbon and the brim-edge binding is all as close to perfect as a person could hope for in a used hat. The crown is straight-sided and the felt feels substantial yet soft and pliable.
How old is it? Beats me, but it's a good 'un.
A couple of caveats: The Whink stuff works only on actual rust, NOT rust-colored stains of another sort. I tried it on a reddish spot on another hat's ribbon and it did nothing for it. And the stuff is quite toxic, according to the warnings plainly printed (in capital letters) on the plastic bottle. The warning says it contains something called hydrofluoric acid, so maybe a generic version is available for less elsewhere. According to the directions, it also works on white sinks and toilets, but those directions also say to use it on white fixtures only.
Took it home, dunked it in naptha and put it on the stretcher (it was about a size too small for me). Once it dried it was still a tad snug so I sprayed some shoe-stretching juice on the sweatband and plain water on the felt and ribbon and stretched it out some more. It fits fine now, but the wind string button came out with a little bit of rust staining. What made this all the worse is that this particular button has a miniature gold-colored metal Stetson logo (the one with the beaver and the eagle and the shield) affixed to the covering. Can't recall ever seeing another quite like it. I figure the rust staining was due to the water oxidizing the button's metal innards and then transfering that little bit of rust to the cloth covering. (I know, I know, I should have removed the string from around the crown and let it dangle. Live and learn.) I wanted to kick myself, until I remembered once buying some rust-stain remover for cloth. I spotted the magic potion at a humble general store (that has since gone out of business) and used it to remove rust spots from a light-colored shirt with metal buttons. That was a decade or more ago.
The local Safeway carries a product called Whink Rust Stain Remover for All Colorfast Fabrics. A 10-ounce bottle (a lifetime supply, it would seem) costs $4.69. The upshot is that it worked great. A couple of drops removed the stains without affecting the color, as best my eyes can tell. And yes, this time I removed the string from around the base of the crown before carrying out the procedure.
The hat looks great now, very nearly good as new. It has the brown leather sweatband but the gold in the embossed parts has all but worn off. You gotta look closely to see the three X's at the front and the Stetson logo on the left side. There is no store label embossed on the sweatband. The liner, of the style with the cowboy and his horse, is so pristine that I suspect it could be a relatively recent replacement. The felt (a bluish-gray) and the ribbon and the brim-edge binding is all as close to perfect as a person could hope for in a used hat. The crown is straight-sided and the felt feels substantial yet soft and pliable.
How old is it? Beats me, but it's a good 'un.
A couple of caveats: The Whink stuff works only on actual rust, NOT rust-colored stains of another sort. I tried it on a reddish spot on another hat's ribbon and it did nothing for it. And the stuff is quite toxic, according to the warnings plainly printed (in capital letters) on the plastic bottle. The warning says it contains something called hydrofluoric acid, so maybe a generic version is available for less elsewhere. According to the directions, it also works on white sinks and toilets, but those directions also say to use it on white fixtures only.
