Beaver 100% Hat Body

jrh · Mar 16, 2004

Tetracholroethene is used in treating pelts these days. The days of using mercury are gone and an old mercury treated hat may pose a health risk.

The exact methods of using mercury in the carroting process were closley kept secrets by the hatters. The original hatters in Connecticut were from Germany, Belgium, and France. They didn't share the methods.

This I know as I have extensively researched the historic hat industries as part of the environmental assessment and remediation of this historic industrial factories.

Winchester is owned by Stratton hats and produces felt hoods. Most felt hoods are from Eastern Europe these days. The environmental regualtions are less strict in Eastern Europe then North America. Trust me, I am an environmental regulator.

Andykev · Mar 16, 2004

Originally posted by jrh
The picture of the hat body Mr Z shows as pure beaver at the beginning of this thread ,appears to me not natural color beaver, but bleached. Natural beaver is a taupe color. I own one.

This hat is owned by Art. I just took a photo of it. It is taupe in color. My flash and the lighting in the room washed out the photo. Yes, it is beaver.

Art Fawcett · Mar 16, 2004

jrh
The beaver body shown at the start of this thread came from Winchester but since I didn't buy it I can't with 100% certainty swear that it is pure beaver. I CAN tell you that with digital photos the colors are normally lighter than in the flesh. A case in point is the hat worn by Jeff bridges in Seabisquit. In reality it is a dingy grey but on screen and in Andykev's pics it shows up light pearl. At least 2 shades lighter.

hatman · Mar 16, 2004

Thanks Art, you have been a lot of help.
I will start calling right away.
Regards,
hatman

Michaelson · Mar 16, 2004

That's the place, and all they advertise here is making ballcaps. Interesting indeed. Guess I see a drive down the road in the VERY near future. Regards. Michaelson

Fedora · Mar 17, 2004

That place is not far from me, just a few hours. I wonder if they would take us on a tour, with free samples??

Fedora

Michaelson · Mar 17, 2004

Heck, if you put it that way, I'm just a few hours away from you too! We could go over in the Plymouth and storm the gates! (grins) Seriously, it's just an old grey warehouse type building, and to tell you the truth, I've NEVER seen anyone around it, so my curiousity is peaked here about what the heck this is all about. Like I said before, all they ever say about the place is they make ball caps, which made sense, as Wilson sporting goods is here (baseball bats), as well as a couple tanneries that supply leather for the production of softballs, so the sports connection worked out for me. Regards. Michaelson

Pat_H · Apr 13, 2007

Andykev said:
"The Stetson Company used fur from the American and Canadian beaver and muskrat, "nutria" from the Agrentine coypu, and fur from the hare from Continental Europe and the Scottish and English coney (a European rabbit) to make their felt. The best quality fur from the beaver, muskrat, and coypu was the belly fur; from the hares and coney the back fur was best. The higher quality of fur used to make the felt, the more expensive the hat made from that felt sould be prime considerations in pricing Stetson hats. HATS MADE OF NUTRIA OR BEAVER WERE NOTED AMONG THE STETSON TRADEMARKS AS THESE WERE THE HIGHEST QUALITY FELTS"

Obviously, the heavier Beaver hat body shown above is raw: hours of sanding, brushing, and finishing will produce an excellent hat. It is a tight hat, good fur, great touch, but is will end up being a heavyweight felt hat. It is a dress hat weight. Not a cowboy hat.

Somebody suggested I look up beaver and Stetson, which I did. This is certainly an interesting quote.

carter · Oct 3, 2008

This is a great thread to reread!

They still hunt nutria, in large numbers (the nutria not the hunters), in Louisiana.

http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2008/07/gunning_for_nutria_at_the_17th.html

Interesting article but, READ THIS THREAD. It is a discussion from a few years ago but will prove interesting to some of our new hat-obsessed members.

Craig Robertson · Oct 3, 2008

This quote from the above article on nutrias "...If nothing else, nutria hunting is great training, Griffin says: The SWAT team members must shoot from a moving vehicle at a moving target."

It's nice to know the New Orleans SWAT team have something to use for target practice...perhaps using animals to practice killing is not a really good thing to brag about.

Justdog · Oct 4, 2008

Yep

Rundquist said:
There were so many different felt-making processes over the last 200 years, that I?¢‚Ç¨‚Ñ¢m sure that everybody?¢‚Ç¨‚Ñ¢s right in their thinking to some degree. I?¢‚Ç¨‚Ñ¢ve heard that beaver belly fur is hard to beat. What I will add as far as the price of beaver pelts goes is that the top hat craze during the 1800?¢‚Ç¨‚Ñ¢s drove the beaver to the brink of extinction. Rarity always plays a part in the cost of something. Today the beaver is no longer on the endangered species list. The price difference in pelts could come from the fact that nutria and rabbits are considered pests. The difference in the hat-product virtues of the different pelts might not translate to the open market price of each. Cheers

Think what you said has a lot of merit. I never heard of Nutria before so I looked it up. It was a bit of a crisis in Louisiana and had the potential to destroy the wetlands. It was developed as a source of felt and became expensive. Beaver as you stated was scarce. Market demand therefore played a role at varying times. On a post here it clearly puts Nutria and then number 1 quality below beaver xx hats. On the subject of felt quality and feel I have several vintage price points in OR style hats. Each felt is different. The softness the firmness and it is not related to the price. As I aquire a few hats only physical touch and feel reveals these differences. So far each hat has a different quality of felt.

belfastboy · Jul 3, 2020

This is an interesting and very old thread. I have a Winchester Nutria body that I got from Art Fawcett. It made a wonderful hat and if I had an opportunity I would switch over to Nutria even over Beaver. The nutria makes a great hat, the fur has such a nice sheen to it. Just me but I prefer it over my Beaver felts.....even over my one Mink/Beaver blend.

Beaver 100% Hat Body

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