Is An Open Road an Open Road if it Doesn't Say Open Road?

Howdy fellers! I’m a-writin’ cuz I done picked up this here fancified Stetson fee-dora on one o’ them thar awkshun places on the internets a while back.



Now, here’s the thang – it looks like an Open Road, it feels like an Open Road, and it even smells like one – but it ain’t spelled out on the sweatband. So my question to you boys is this:

Is it or ain’t it?



Adios, amigos!

My Stetson 25 doesn't have Open Road written in it, but it's exactly like my other Open Road.

I am thinking the Open Road is a specific model like a Whippet..

I'd say that there are two answers:

1. In one sense, "Open Road" really describes a particular style -- and, from a stylistic standpoint, your lid is absolutely an Open Road. I have a Royal Stetson with a liner similar to yours -- it does not say "Open Road" on the sweat, but it is indistinguishable from my "real" ORs.

2. On the other hand, from a strict "collector" standpoint, I suppose that "Open Road" means that the lid is actually identified as such on the sweatband.

Either way, you got yourself a nice looking lid.

Cheers,
JtL

I have two hats I call "Open Road" hats; neither of them appear to ever have had that model name written on them, though.

One is a Stetson 20 "Sovereign", apparently from the 1970's (but not sure). It's my "most Open Road" hat, in that it has that particular cattleman bash from back there yonder where Jack Ruby rendered his awful account. But this hat does not have the brim-rim edge finish, it's "raw edge".

The other one is a Stetson 100, apparently from the 1950's (you never know for sure, do you?). This one does have the brim-rim binding. I bash it Fedora style which -to me personally- makes it rather less "Open Road"-ish, but in fact ...it's only a bash, and the quality of this hat is such, that I could bash it into any style I wanted.

I've had both hats fitted with replacement sweatbands, blanks without any inscription (but I kept the original sweatbands and stuck them behind the replacement headband, as a reminder for myself of their "true" origin.

Are they Open Road hats? I say yes.
And your hat, too, Even Steven.

Most have the insignia - some don't for whatever reason.

I've got one that is without the "Open Road" printing anywhere. It's slightly unusual due to being moss green but otherwise totally an O.R. Then I met a person with one - exactly like mine - with one difference: That one had the "Open Road" printed on the sweat.

It's up to you, Steven. I'd say you've got an "Open-Ended".

Here is another question...

When does an Open Road cease to be an Open Road? I am currently having Optimo rebuild mine with a 9 ligne bound edge and replacing the thin ribbon with a 16-19 ligne. The brim is being cut down from 2 7/8" to 2 5/8" and the sweatband is also being replaced. It will look entirely different but is it still considered an OR? I know some of you purists are probably grinding your teeth right now. lol

To me, that's not an OR anymore. It's an Optimo.
I'm not sure when I'd say the change took place, but that's an easy one for me. I wouldn't say it's the sweat replacement, and maybe it's not even putting a wider ribbon on there. The brim cutting and wide binding though, those signal the OR's death and the Optimo's birth for me.
I mourn the passing, but celebrate the birth - and I want baby pictures when it's done!

Viper Man said:

Here is another question...

When does an Open Road cease to be an Open Road? I am currently having Optimo rebuild mine with a 9 ligne bound edge and replacing the thin ribbon with a 16-19 ligne. The brim is being cut down from 2 7/8" to 2 5/8" and the sweatband is also being replaced. It will look entirely different but is it still considered an OR? I know some of you purists are probably grinding your teeth right now. lol

Click to expand...

^OR's did have varying brim widths, though, didn't they? I think if anything would make it no longer an OR it would be the ribbon change. I'd have a hard time calling that an OR, though.

Be sure to get that straight before they come for the hat census.

Viper Man said:

Here is another question...

When does an Open Road cease to be an Open Road? I am currently having Optimo rebuild mine with a 9 ligne bound edge and replacing the thin ribbon with a 16-19 ligne. The brim is being cut down from 2 7/8" to 2 5/8" and the sweatband is also being replaced. It will look entirely different but is it still considered an OR? I know some of you purists are probably grinding your teeth right now. lol

Click to expand...

One of the signature elements of an OR is the thin-ribbon, along with the narrow edge-binding. Once those go, I wouldn't call it an OR anymore -- at least from a stylistic standpoint. As far as the brim width goes, I have two ORs with 2 5/8" brims -- in many ways, these are closer to a Strat style-wise than they are to my other ORs, since the narrower brim also is accompanied by a slightly less ample open crown (which results in that "streamlined" look... )

Cheers,
JtL

Then again...

maybe you're moving more toward the original with that wider ribbon.

Dinerman said:

This one belongs to Douglas, but I saved the auction photos from when he bought it. This was the original open road.

Click to expand...

BTW, weren't we having a very similar discussion in Italian recently?

You are not alone

Hi,

I'm with you. I call 'em an Open Road if they have the matching thin ribbon and edge binding. That's enough for me. Heck, I call 'em OR even if they're not Stetson brand. I have a couple Resistol branded copies and I refer to those as 'Resistol Open Roads' as opposed to the Stetson branded ones.

I know. Heresy! But, then, Stetson and Resistol eventually became the same company, even though they weren't in the vintage days. Anyway, that's my story and I'm stickin' to it! lol

Where I get confused is when the OR loses it's Western styling - the Alpine Crown (cattleman's crease) and becomes a Fedora. Then, it might still say 'Open Road' on it, but it seems to me it becomes more of a Stratoliner Clone at that point.

As far as I can see in photos, the Strat and the OR are the same hat. I did find a couple references to the felt being thinner in the Strat than the OR. Anyone got both of the real deal to verify this one?

Then, too, the Strat was a marketing scheme associated with air travel in the early days - on the plane known as a Stratoliner. It even came with an oddly shaped, streamlined looking hatbox. Heck, it even had a special Stratoliner airplane pin. I can see where one might think that anything else is not a Stratoliner!

So, maybe calling an OR turned Fedora a Startoliner Clone is a bad thing.

As I sit here mulling this over, I wonder if the unmarked Stetson Open Road hats of higher quality (25, 100, Royal, etc) might have been Open Crown when new?

Maybe the hat only got the Open Road embossing if it were styled at the factory. So, a buyer goes into the shop, picks out the higher grade hat, and the salesman puts in a cattleman's creases and it is made into an Open Road for him. He gets a real Open Road, then, yet is does not say so on the sweatband.

Now, there's something that makes sense. So, that can't be the reason! lol

Anyway, I have Open Road hats in Tan and Silverbelly; in Stetson, Resistol and Custom made brands; and with cattleman crease Western styling as well as center crease and front pinch Fedora styling.

I call them all 'Open Roads' and don't sweat the details.

Now, if I were to rework the hat such that it no longer had the thin ribbon or edge binding, then I'd cease calling it an Open Road even if it's a Stetson brand with the name embossed on it.

Later!

Stan

Does anyone call every generic looking cruising motorcycle a "Harley"?
Do features make the model or factory designation?

Once again..shouldn't Open Roads be stamped and designated Open Road?

Where is this "it is an open road because I think so" talk coming from?? Opinion is not evidence!

Feraud said:

Does anyone call every generic looking cruising motorcycle a "Harley"?
Do features make the model or factory designation?

Once again..shouldn't Open Roads be stamped and designated Open Road?

Where is this "it is an open road because I think so" talk coming from?? Opinion is not evidence!

Click to expand...

Hi,

Yep. Lots of people call every motorcycle, cruiser or not, that they see a 'Harley'. Not everyone, of course, but I do hear it a lot. I ride a 1981 Honda Goldwing, which actually looks *nothing* like a cruiser. It has a water-cooled, opposing 4-cyl (boxer) engine and one rides it in an upright position. It does not look remotely like it has an air-cooled V-twin engine or that one rides in a laid-back position.

Yet I hear 'Nice Harley' every other day. The danged thing has 'Honda' badges all over the thing, too! Oh, well. I can't get fussed about it. Honda might, although I doubt it given the age of my bike and how it is so very different from what they call a Gold Wing nowadays. However, Harley-Davidson sure ought to be fussed about it!

It may not be correct, but such things happen all the time. Companies lose their product names to the public domain because the public makes it so. I can think of several right off the top of my head, but it doesn't really matter for our discussion. I understand what you're getting at here.

Back to the hat topic. I get the 'Open Road Opinion' you speak of right off this very board from the rather lengthy thread called the Open Road Guild. Y'all taught me, since I had never heard the name 'Open Road' before February, although I had seen many such styled hats before.

So, I now stand corrected: It's not an Open Road, unless it's from Stetson and has said name embossed onto the sweatband.

So, I guess that the answer for the original poster is, no, that hat you have is not an Open Road. It just looks like one.....

Later!

Stan

Hi again,

Any thoughts on my idea that perhaps the higher-level, unstamped, OR-looking Stetsons were sold open crown and so they'd not get the OR name since that requires a cattleman's crease from the factory?

Stan

A Rose By Any Other Name Would Smell As Sweet

Feraud said:

Where is this "it is an open road because I think so" talk coming from?? Opinion is not evidence!

Click to expand...

This is becoming a rather interesting discussion, but I'm afraid I must attend to the following activities:

1. Xerox some copies of a magazine article (On a Canon printer)
2. Put a fresh Band-Aid on my cut. (Actually it's a Curad)
3. Have some orange Jell-o. (Made by Royal Gelatin)

All the while wearing your Indiana Jones, Cowboy, Dick Tracy, Gangster hats.

As to the side point of an Open Road and a Stratoliner being the same hat, I do have each in actual Stetson. The Stratoliner has the lower crown and slightly narrower brim as mentioned earlier. I think that stayed pretty consistent through the production life of that model.

Most, most mind you, of the Stetson O.R.s have the taller crown and wider brim. I have four, and three of them fit that bill. I also have O.R. clones in Penny's Marathon and LaSalle (beat Stan to that one! ) and Champ, and they all have the fuller dimensions.

One of the Stetson Open Roads is, however, proportioned just the same as the Stratoliner (I do have the cattleman's crease in the O.R. and a diamond bash in the Strat' but it's still obvious).

To wrap it up; it's my belief that the Stratoliners were pretty consistent and it is my experience that the O.R.s were not always. There are also variations within the breed with respect to the color of "silverbelly" and the style of bow on the ribbon. And folks bash hats any way they want. A Whippet with a diamond crease is a Whippet with a C-Crown is a Whippet with and Open Crown. If I go out and put a dent in my truck, it's still a GMC Suburban.

With all this in mind, my logic dictates that it is the actual designation, printed in the hat, which makes it "The Open Road" or an "Open Road". If it is really, really similar but it doesn't say so, then technically it's not.

But you can tell people you've got a Band-Aid on your head, or a Harley, or Jell-O if you like. If it looks good and it makes you happy, I'm not gonna' correct ya'! lol

Notice the similarities in the Stetson models in this ad,
http://207.218.231.242/~thefedor/showthread.php?t=33387
I would look for an Open Road mark somewhere in the hat before calling any Western looking Stetson an Open Road.