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[Judgmentalist]

My experience in buying used hats off Ebay is one of having to kiss a lot of frogs. Be prepared for disappointment if you are not buying from an established reseller you trust.

I’ve bought 4 used hats so far, and I’m annoyed with three of them already and they haven’t gotten here yet lol. I don’t mind having them for variety and so on, but they probably aren’t ideal for what my current end goal is. At any rate I’m gonna pump the brakes for a minute on the used stuff.

All part of my particularly toxic learning curve lol.

 

[The Shoe]

I have about a dozen homburgs...I like wearing them with a hoodie...Jean jacket....leather jacket or tweed blazer.....in other words I see them going with anything.

And I love wearing my bowler with a leather jacket.

 

[ruvort]

Does anyone know where to source the tape that was used to join the two ends of a leather sweatband together?

 

[belfastboy]

Does anyone know where to source the tape that was used to join the two ends of a leather sweatband together?

I just use a medium weight black interfacing fabric

 

[belfastboy]

I’ve bought 4 used hats so far, and I’m annoyed with three of them already and they haven’t gotten here yet lol. I don’t mind having them for variety and so on, but they probably aren’t ideal for what my current end goal is. At any rate I’m gonna pump the brakes for a minute on the used stuff.

All part of my particularly toxic learning curve lol.

Buying used works as a practice IF you treat it purely as education. Resign yourself to it as a learning experience...set expectations low and it can be worthwhile. As a hunt for great...cheap hats....it is frustrating and expensive

 

[belfastboy]

I think you may be underestimating how much I value knowing something was done right lol. Also I’m not sure how much of this vintage stuff I’m going to be doing. I’m much more likely to have the right hat made exactly the way I want it - once I have that dialed in

Then treat the hunt for used hats as part of this dialing in process. Learning generally costs money one way or another.

 

[ruvort]

I just use a medium weight black interfacing fabric

What do you use to glue it? I assume you wouldn't use the fusible interfacing since the iron could potentially damage the leather.

 

[Edward]

View attachment 778575 Experimenting with creases on my Akubra CD, after my initial fedora crease, I put in a cattleman crease, but that immediately too it to far into cowboy hat territory; I’m English, it just feels weird to me, to go full cowboy, so I took it out again.

I then went back to a simple crease and quite wide front pinch, wanting to respect what the hat wants to do while taking my face shape into consideration, especially since I had my annual shearing recently and my face looks smaller as a result.
It currently has a height of 10cm (3.93 inches) front and back. To my eye it looks kind of Open Road-ish, minus the cattlemen.
I’m interested to know the conventional wisdom on front creases?

Nice job. I have a Campdraft Deluxe I bought about fifteen years ago - steamed the brim down at the front on mine, gave it a fedora-style bash. Yours looks great. I like them as a sort of 'town cowboy' hat, a subtle Western style that I find a lot more wearable than an overt cowboy hat. I do like the brim-up on yours, though. One of my straw Statoliners I wear like that quite a lot.

I really like this one. I think I’m going to have Wolfbrae help me get one made that is dialed in on my size before I will be willing to spend any money chasing vintage, though. What do you guys think? I assume like most everything else on Etsy (in my experience)it’s nice but probably at the top or just outside what it’s worth

https://www.etsy.com/listing/438706...ul-midnight-blue?ref=share_ios_native_control View attachment 779389

If you just wanted a fairly regular black Homburg, you can pick up a really nice vintage one for much, much less, with a little patience. Midnight blue, though, is rare. Probably depends on how much you're prepared to spend. If I was really gonig to push the boat out and spend that kind of money, I might be tempted just to pony up for one from Locks, but I've never been able to bring myself to put that much in one. For vintage, in midnight blue, and a larger size like that I don't expect there will be many of them around, so I suppose it depends how badly you want one...

I don't know that I've seen one in linen before, but that style (usually in tweed or rough felt) was intended for country wear. Peruse that link I posted and you'll see some examples (even some alpine or tyrolean style hats, which don't really do it for me but were definitely worn). Not my vibe either.

They're fairly common here in London in the Summer. Not my personal preference, but as they say if nobody wanted to buy them, they wouldn't be on sale. If it gets people into hats , it's all good - maybe they'll later try something I find nicer - and if not, so what. I'm all for hat-wearing being further normalised. It's been nice to see that happen some places I go. Back in the 90s O used to get shouted at in the street in Belfast for wearing a hat.

 

[Frunobulax]

What do you use to glue it? I assume you wouldn't use the fusible interfacing since the iron could potentially damage the leather.

I just use a medium weight black interfacing fabric (tape).

I think that's what he meant. I do the same, but use white. It's on the back side of the sweat anyway.

For those of us without the skilz to sew a zig-zag stitch.

 

[Judgmentalist]

Nice job. I have a Campdraft Deluxe I bought about fifteen years ago - steamed the brim down at the front on mine, gave it a fedora-style bash. Yours looks great. I like them as a sort of 'town cowboy' hat, a subtle Western style that I find a lot more wearable than an overt cowboy hat. I do like the brim-up on yours, though. One of my straw Statoliners I wear like that quite a lot.



If you just wanted a fairly regular black Homburg, you can pick up a really nice vintage one for much, much less, with a little patience. Midnight blue, though, is rare. Probably depends on how much you're prepared to spend. If I was really gonig to push the boat out and spend that kind of money, I might be tempted just to pony up for one from Locks, but I've never been able to bring myself to put that much in one. For vintage, in midnight blue, and a larger size like that I don't expect there will be many of them around, so I suppose it depends how badly you want one...



They're fairly common here in London in the Summer. Not my personal preference, but as they say if nobody wanted to buy them, they wouldn't be on sale. If it gets people into hats , it's all good - maybe they'll later try something I find nicer - and if not, so what. I'm all for hat-wearing being further normalised. It's been nice to see that happen some places I go. Back in the 90s O used to get shouted at in the street in Belfast for wearing a hat.

I like that Cavanaugh. It’s not actually a 7 1/2 and I doubt it would fit me. Eventually I’d like to get a really nice vintage one, a really nice custom one from a smaller custom hatter and one from Lock. I’d like to look at them side by side. We shall see how it goes.

 

[belfastboy]

What do you use to glue it? I assume you wouldn't use the fusible interfacing since the iron could potentially damage the leather.

It gets stitched on as the sweat ends are stitched together...zig zag

 

[blewnote]

If you just wanted a fairly regular black Homburg, you can pick up a really nice vintage one for much, much less, with a little patience. Midnight blue, though, is rare. Probably depends on how much you're prepared to spend. If I was really gonig to push the boat out and spend that kind of money, I might be tempted just to pony up for one from Locks, but I've never been able to bring myself to put that much in one. For vintage, in midnight blue, and a larger size like that I don't expect there will be many of them around, so I suppose it depends how badly you want one...

Funny how everyone's experiences are different. I've bought 5 "black" homburgs (some listed as bowlers) on the Bay and 3 of them were midnight blue and a fourth that may be black or may be such a deep blue that it really does look black (really hard to tell, depending on the light it looks very deep blue and sometimes black). And a sixth from a fellow lounger that is also midnight blue. So at least for me, black is the rarity!

 

[Dan718]

Anyone else getting server errors when trying to upload photos?

I’ve tried refreshing, logging out and back in, all I get is the “oops!” Server error.

 

[blewnote]

Anyone else getting server errors when trying to upload photos?

I’ve tried refreshing, logging out and back in, all I get is the “oops!” Server error.

Yes

 

[Rmccamey]

Alright I found a vintage Cavanaugh Homburg that might actually fit around my giant noggin. What do you guys think? I’m thinking of sending to @belfastboy to freshen it up if he thinks it would be worth doing.

That's not a Homburg. It's just an upturned stingy brim.

Homburgs have a bound brim with a distinct brim curl.

Dang it. You’re right. It’s annoying how many of these hats are mislabeled in this way. Ah well such is life.

My thought also, Fruno.

Hat hunting can be fun, but tap into the knowledge on this forum as well. And, a word of advice, many hat listings on auction sites have description errors, so be prepared to ask questions and get additional photos from the sellers. For example, I find that a high percentage of hats on ebay that are open crown are listed as "bowlers" when, in fact, they are not.

 

[Judgmentalist]

What do you guys think of this one? I’m curious what it would take/if it can be put back to it’s original condition, etc.

https://ebay.us/m/LQB6RJ

 

[blewnote]

What do you guys think of this one? I’m curious what it would take/if it can be put back to it’s original condition, etc.

https://ebay.us/m/LQB6RJ

All I'm seeing is a little crumpling, which can most likely be fixed with some steam and less than 30 minutes of your time.

 

[bowlerman]

Does anyone know if there’s a general sunglasses forum on here somewhere?

I’ve found a small number of specific threads, but nothing comprehensive like if we wanted to learn about sunnies the way we have about hats, or a WSAYWT that I can find.

They have been the new object of my collecting gene recently.

 

[Judgmentalist]

All I'm seeing is a little crumpling, which can most likely be fixed with some steam and less than 30 minutes of your time.

That’s what I assumed, thank you- this one is an auction; I’m assuming it will get bid up past what I would be willing to pay, but I do like looking at them

 

[Judgmentalist]

Hard to tell from one pic, but Anton Peschel made some great hats. If it fits, you should be happy.

Got this Peschel in today. It’s a lovely hat - fits a little loose for a 60, surprisingly, but it isn’t tagged, so what’re you gonna do. I was expecting it to go the other way.

I’m gonna play with it and see what we can do. For $60 I’m happy to have it. I’ll post a picture in the appropriate thread once I get something sorted out - this is the first soft hat I’ve ever owned and I don’t know what to do with it - I feel like a cat playing with a mouse or something lol