Dating Vintage Stetsons by size tag

JessieJames said:

Found the tool you mentioned
https://picclick.ca/

Is there a way to add multiple filters? ex I'm looking for 6 7/8 and 7 size hats?

Could always stumble upon a nice 7 and just add some felt pieces

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I haven't found a good way to filter out just size 7, because adding 7 picks up all the sizes with 7 in them.

6 7/8 the world is your oyster. In fact, are you interested in a navy Dobbs 20?

JessieJames said:

I got an OR from Alan off here, got a Borsalino vintage but it's not at all grey and now have to reship that back and spend 70$ CAD on all these extra shipping, ugh. Not a great way to end the week.

The filters on that website don't work that well, looks like there is no shortcut to the long scrolling through ebay pages.

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That's great that you got the OR! I saw when he offered if the other potential buyer didn't come through, and didnt know it would happen so fast.
I was puzzled by what you said about still sifting through all of eBay, but may understand. I was on a Windows laptop on the site, and thought perusing it was multiple times faster than eBay itself. My resolution is set pretty high, so I could see, maybe, 12? ads across and as many up and down. To scan144 ads on eBay would require much more moving from page to page.
Perhaps you dont get such a sweet format on a phone or tablet. I haven't tried it from my phone yet, but know I sometimes get very different formats on Droid than Windows.

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jlee562 said:

I haven't found a good way to filter out just size 7, because adding 7 picks up all the sizes with 7 in them.

6 7/8 the world is your oyster. In fact, are you interested in a navy Dobbs 20?

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I've been more open to colors lately but I'm really looking for a light or even dark grey and 2.5-3in brim just looked through 10 pages of classifieds with no luck

JessieJames said:

I've been more open to colors lately but I'm really looking for a light or even dark grey and 2.5-3in brim just looked through 10 pages of classifieds with no luck

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Well, we are drifting from the thread topic, but my other suggestion would be to search some of the lesser known brands. Resistol is mostly known for western hats nowadays, but they made some really nice fedoras through the sixties that don't quite command the prices or attention that say a Stetson or Borsalino does. But brands like Champ, Lee, and the Penney's Marathon line are all good lines to search down.

jlee562 said:

Well, we are drifting from the thread topic, but my other suggestion would be to search some of the lesser known brands. Resistol is mostly known for western hats nowadays, but they made some really nice fedoras through the sixties that don't quite command the prices or attention that say a Stetson or Borsalino does. But brands like Champ, Lee, and the Penney's Marathon line are all good lines to search down.

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Good to know! I see alot on eBay I don't recognize. So I'll keep an eye out and hopefully get my hands on a soft light or dark grey fur felt. Is there a thread to post ebay listings to get feedback?

To piggyback off of Jared's comment, @JessieJames, here's an example of a size 7 Marathon clone to Stetson's Strat/OR (brim size not listed):

It is a more budget friendly brand, but Penney's did put out quality items back in the day. I have a Marathon fedora in grey with boxbows and gills. By far my favorite ribbon treatment of all my hats.

Also, here is my Champ B-17 in tan, which was their version of the Strat. Felt isn't as nice and on the thinner side, but still a good serviceable vintage hat.

TheOldFashioned said:

​

To piggyback off of Jared's comment, @JessieJames, here's an example of a size 7 Marathon clone to Stetson's Strat/OR (brim size not listed):

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Pennys-Marathon-Open-Road-Style-Fedora-7-Gray/173849539882
​

It is a more budget friendly brand, but Penney's did put out quality items back in the day. I have a Marathon fedora in grey with boxbows and gills. By far my favorite ribbon treatment of all my hats.

Also, here is my Champ B-17 in tan, which was their version of the Strat. Felt isn't as nice and on the thinner side, but still a good serviceable vintage hat.

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Those are excellent suggestions! T
SO glad I joined this forum learning much from you guys and gals. I don't need a top of the line Stetson for the grey cuz I know I won't wear it as much as my 7x OR Stetson so getting a cheaper quality hat would be great. The felt doesn't look as soft though lkke a borsalino? And it seems to be a 3x, for that company is that still nice? I mean hand feel?

Says it's from 1960s, don't know if that's legit or not and if that was a good era for that hat. Do you have any insight?

TheOldFashioned said:

​

To piggyback off of Jared's comment, @JessieJames, here's an example of a size 7 Marathon clone to Stetson's Strat/OR (brim size not listed):

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Pennys-Marathon-Open-Road-Style-Fedora-7-Gray/173849539882
​

It is a more budget friendly brand, but Penney's did put out quality items back in the day. I have a Marathon fedora in grey with boxbows and gills. By far my favorite ribbon treatment of all my hats.

Also, here is my Champ B-17 in tan, which was their version of the Strat. Felt isn't as nice and on the thinner side, but still a good serviceable vintage hat.

Click to expand...

My grandfather's Panama, which I 'inherited', was a J. C. Penny toquilla straw fedora shaped more like a snap brim than a planter. Very nice. It was the first hat I owned with a leather sweat.

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JessieJames said:

Those are excellent suggestions! T
SO glad I joined this forum learning much from you guys and gals. I don't need a top of the line Stetson for the grey cuz I know I won't wear it as much as my 7x OR Stetson so getting a cheaper quality hat would be great. The felt doesn't look as soft though lkke a borsalino? And it seems to be a 3x, for that company is that still nice? I mean hand feel?

Says it's from 1960s, don't know if that's legit or not and if that was a good era for that hat. Do you have any insight?

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Pictures can be deceiving, though it's probably safe to say it won't be as soft as a Borsalino. And it definitely won't be as nice as your Stetson 7XCB, but few hats will be. Regarding the 3X, I can't say what that quality designation means. Some of those "X" ratings were marketing gimmicks. (I remember seeing a modern hat rated 500X, and yes, all 500 were printed on the sweatband...give me a break.) Things also get muddied when trying to compare across decades, as generally a 3X from say the 30s would almost assuredly be better than a 3X from the 60s. And don't even begin to try to compare across brands. What I can say is that my hat is probably from the same timeframe, late 50s-early 60s, and it doesn't have a 3X designation. It would seem to follow that a 3X would be better quality than no X's, but that is pure speculation on my part. The felt on mine has a decent hand. It is a bit stiff but it holds a crease well, probably my best C-crown bash to date.

Regarding timeframe, I would say late 50s-early 60s. The plastic layer liner tip protector and the brown sweatband are the main clues, along with the big "M" logo. The plastic protector came to prominence in the 50s and lasted into the 60s, though I think it first started to show up in the late 40s. I usually assume 50s as a starting point whenever I see one in a hat. The brown sweatband was pretty much U.S. industry standard until the mid-60s, and then transitioned to black. There are exceptions, perhaps more so for older hats (and this definitely does not apply for foreign products), but if the sweatband is brown you can probably assume it's 60s or earlier. (Note, this does not include brown with a gold line embellishment as seen on some modern productions.) Finally, the big "M" seems to be one of the later logos used for Marathon hats. You can find a bit more info in the Marathon thread.

I quickly browsed through the Marathon thread but didn't find an example of a 3X or a hat in this style. I did find a couple references to a 3X Marathon when doing a Fedora Lounge Google search, but I didn't dig too deep. I'll leave that up to you if you decide to pursue this any further.

TheOldFashioned said:

Pictures can be deceiving, though it's probably safe to say it won't be as soft as a Borsalino. And it definitely won't be as nice as your Stetson 7XCB, but few hats will be. Regarding the 3X, I can't say what that quality designation means. Some of those "X" ratings were marketing gimmicks. (I remember seeing a modern hat rated 500X, and yes, all 500 were printed on the sweatband...give me a break.)

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Boy do I know pictures can be deceiving. I'm inquiring on the hat you linked and another I found I liked, and I'm iffy about the colour description/photos now. That ebay Penney's Marathon it says grey and looks grey but then I clicked through the images and looked a bit more (and this depends on so much like lighting and your camera and computer screen) and it kind of looks beige and I'm thinking I may encounter the same problem as the last where they said: gray, and it was a beige yellow, barely a sand colour.

Was colour designation was different back in the day or in hats and grey doesn't mean.. grey?

Or it's an issue with seeing colour properly (biologically, women see colours better than men, which makes sense when you look at the animal kingdom world and most of the time the males are colourful to attract attention and then females lack vibrant colours, although I don't think that applied to humans in courtship, I digress)

As for marketing, oof, don't even get me started on that one. Does make it more challenging in the hat world to identify things and take the X for what it is, since there is no clear standard.

JessieJames said:

Boy do I know pictures can be deceiving. I'm inquiring on the hat you linked and another I found I liked, and I'm iffy about the colour description/photos now. That ebay Penney's Marathon it says grey and looks grey but then I clicked through the images and looked a bit more (and this depends on so much like lighting and your camera and computer screen) and it kind of looks beige and I'm thinking I may encounter the same problem as the last where they said: gray, and it was a beige yellow, barely a sand colour.

Was colour designation was different back in the day or in hats and grey doesn't mean.. grey?

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Yeah, when I scrolled through the pics the same thought occurred to me regarding the color. In some pics is does appear to maybe be a sandy color but the lighting also appears to change too, so not sure what really is accurate. I figured if you were interested you would follow up with the seller. As others have said, you should have a fairly decent selection at your size, so if you're willing to wait I'm sure other options will crop up relatively soon.

Regarding color, as far as I know grey has always been grey, but I guess without some type of independent standard to compare against it could be subjective. There is natural color variation between felts and batch dyes and whatnot, but I get where you're coming from. Lighting, screen settings, biological differences, etc. make it even more difficult, and it is one of the drawbacks of e-commerce. Twice I thought I was getting a grey hat and one turned out to be more brown (it was just really dusty) and the other was green (very poor picture quality).

JessieJames said:

Good to know! I see alot on eBay I don't recognize. So I'll keep an eye out and hopefully get my hands on a soft light or dark grey fur felt. Is there a thread to post ebay listings to get feedback?

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As long as we're drifting. Here's a fairly comprehensive list of past and present hatmakers. Most are now defunct, but it'll give you some idea about brands to be on the lookout for.
https://www.thefedoralounge.com/threads/classic-hat-makers-list.15652/

Well go to go back on topic, I'm looking at a beautiful vintage Stetson velour. Waiting on the seller to write me back. By photos it looks very gray. However the description of the colour says: clear.

I decided to download the images and go into photoshop and colour correct the white balance with the wall plugs, and all of a sudden that grey turns into a beige/clear colour. I don't understand how the sellers can think that's at all accurate.. I understand some discrepancies but it's like they're not even trying.

LEFT: original posting on ebay RIGHT: my rough colour correct

This may be a dead issue after 2 weeks, but I picked up an OR clone sold by Sears Roebuck. I had heard the Marathon praised here, but nothing about the Pilgrim. I don't believe anyone even bid against me.
I was pleasantly surprised by the hat.
On colors; I thought I had a dusty black that turned out to be a dusty navy.

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See, this is why we can’t have anything nice. TLH

Any ideas on a date for this one? This is from a Beaver 100, probably from the early 70's based on the owners recollection. Looking at the Beaver 100 thread, however, most of those hats had a black rectangular tag. This one is brown (or red). The picture is very poor.

This is a bit confusing. I thought that by the mid 1980s the size tags had US and metric combination sizing. Perhaps the long oval tags kept the metric sizes at bay a bit longer?






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deadlyhandsome said:

This is a bit confusing. I thought that by the mid 1980s the size tags had US and metric combination sizing. Perhaps the long oval tags kept the metric sizes at bay a bit longer?

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Maybe it was on the shelf for a few years before selling?

I'm not sure if any of the dating touchstones have much meaning after the Philadelphia factory closed in the 1970s. But long oval size tags had a mind of their own earlier too...

I don’t recall seeing this size tag before:





This is not my hat and I don’t have any additional photos. It could be a foreign, made under license, hat. I’m sure others have seen it before and can set me straight. Thanks in advance.


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