Better quality vintage hats?

[ScottyBlues]

I've started watching and bidding on hats on Ebay, but I'm struggling to know which hats are good and which aren't. I've read on the Lounge that the felt in the vintage hats blows away anything I'll find in a modern production hat.

So, which hats should I look for? For example, looking on ebay today I see a "Royal Stetson" and a "Royal Deluxe Stetson". Is the deluxe a better grade? Where in that comparison would a "sovereign" fall? What about the 3x Beaver Stetson?

I've read that Stetson quality has fallen off. Which lines/models should I be looking for to get one of the better quality ones?

How would you rank Stetson versus Knox, Cavanagh, etc? Here, I'm looking at the vintage hats and not modern production hats, which is covered by another thread.

If I was going to only buy one or two vintage fedoras, what are the ones that are "essential"?

Thanks in adavance.

--Scott

 

[jamespowers]

This is a subject that is tough to address as everyone has their favorite brands. My top ten list varies over time but it always looks something like this:

Cavanagh
Dunlap
Knox
Dobbs
Mallory
Portis
Stetson
Scnoble and a few other small regional hatters.
Champ
Adam

You'll notice that Stetson is quite a bit down the line but it stands to reason when you consider that Dunlap, Cavanagh and Knox were the best you could get at the time. They weren't cheap either and they didn't try to compete for price. Their philosophy was to use the best materials they could get and then price the hat accordingly.
Dobbs, Mallory and Portis did the same thing but to a lesser degree. They had cheaper models.
Stetson et al, had different grades of hats. The difference was trim materials and the level of skill of the person who worked on the hat. This was not much of a consideration with Champ and Adam. They were your low price leaders. Some would call these your farmer's hats. They had higher price level hats but they didn't come close to a Dunlap or Cavanagh.
There are other makers I figure I missed in my list but we are talking top ten. One that now comes to mind is Resistol. Probably on par with the Stetson or slightly above. Resistol is still around but they are now cowboy hats exclusively. Their pre 1968 hats are all marked Byer-Rolnick so it makes it easy to see when the hat was produced before. I am sure I missed a few others but they could be placed somewhere along the maker's list.

Regards,

J

 

[J.T.Marcus]

If you can find a "DISNEY" (not Roy, not even a close relative), chances are you will be delighted!

 

[Bud-n-Texas]

JP I agree with your assessment, I might add Borsalino, Wormser and Pilgrim to the list. Seems most all of the vintage hats are superior to modern hats. I have a couple of Borsalino's one from pre sell out and one relatively new. The felt in both are better than any modern I have seen and some of the vintage as well. Stetson produced such a wide variety and quality of hat, it is hard to give one appraisal to the complete line. I would rate my Vogue as exceptional and my 3X very high as well.

 

[Ande1964]

I've noticed that people usually put Adam at or near the bottom of the vintage list, but I have a couple that I think are remarkable.

Anj

 

[jamespowers]

If you can find a "DISNEY" (not Roy, not even a close relative), chances are you will be delighted!

That is a name I forgot. I would put that between the Dobbs and Mallory. They are decent hats but they were sort of midgrade---even though they had hgigher quality-higher priced models made from exotic furs like Otter no less.

 

[jamespowers]

JP I agree with your assessment, I might add Borsalino, Wormser and Pilgrim to the list. Seems most all of the vintage hats are superior to modern hats. I have a couple of Borsalino's one from pre sell out and one relatively new. The felt in both are better than any modern I have seen and some of the vintage as well. Stetson produced such a wide variety and quality of hat, it is hard to give one appraisal to the complete line. I would rate my Vogue as exceptional and my 3X very high as well.

You have a few good additions there. I wasn't thinking of anything but the US brands. :eusa_doh:
Borsalino---the vintage ones now, I am not talking about the new ones , fits in with Cavanagh, Dunlap and Knox. This is also true of the old Barbisio and Panizza.
Wormser I have had mixed results with. I have a great white one with great trimmings but I have also had a pretty cheap and lousy quality felt one so that would go with Stetson---there was just a range.
Pilgrim was made for one of the big stores of the time. I forget if it was JC Penney or Sears at that time. I have a sneaking suspicion that these were made by Lee Hats, which is a name I forgot as well. These were again, "farmer's hats" (Lee's terminaology for them not mine) with a thin ribbon and thinly bound edge. They fit in with the Champs and Adams although I have a Lee 100 that is a very nice quality hat so Lee as a Lee was like Stetson.

Regards,

J

 

[jamespowers]

I've noticed that people usually put Adam at or near the bottom of the vintage list, but I have a couple that I think are remarkable.

Anj

They are compared to modern factory produced hats. However, you can't compare a Cadillac with a Chevrolet. The difference is probably the same though. It might be nearly the same felt but the trim (sweatband, ribbon and liner) were all higher quality in the Borsalinos and Cavanaghs. Borsalino would likely give you a silk liner and a thick, supple roan leather sweatband with high quality ribbon and maybe even a Cavanagh edge. Very few Champs or Adams have Cavanagh edges as they would have had to pay Cavanagh in order to use it. Not good for the low price leader. They certainly never had silk liners or roan leather sweatbands.
Here are a few examples of the ads of that time. You tell me who they were advertising to and what market:

 

[barrowjh]

It will take some time maybe, and some experience gained, and you begin to have some success in picking out desirable vintage vs more recent (and less desirable) vintage. Some sellers are using vintage for any fedora that isn't new, and some use vintage to describe a new hat, because they believe the fedora style hat is a 'vintage' style. Here, I think we generally think of vintage as being from the period when just about every man wore a hat (roughly, before the 1960's). There is no real clear line in the sand, and the line is different for each manufacturer (and different shades of that line by decade). You will make some mistakes in judgment. In addition, you sometimes gamble on poorly described / photographed hats and maybe you win (great hat/clueless seller), but sometimes not (clueless seller with a lousy hat!).

Recent vintage markers - feathers, black sweatbands no wider than 1 1/2 inch, external brand markers (stetson pin on the bow, for instance), seams, stingy brims.

 

[ScottyBlues]

Felt quality?

So when was the golden age of felt? I've read where people say the modern felt can't compare. What age should I be shooting for to get some of this great felt? Is there a particular brand/model that I could count on having this kind of felt?

 

[Alon]

JP, how would you rate Biltmore? Particularly vintage Biltmore?

 

[airforceindy]

I'm not nearly as experienced as the vast majority of gentlemen (and ladies) at the Lounge, but I tend to look for the brown sweat bands first. Thus far, that seems to me to be the easiest sign of a decent vintage hat. I look at the quality of it, the integrity of the stitching, whether or not the tape has pulled away from the body, and what kind of condition the lettering is in. Then, I look at the ribbon, to see if it still hugs the crown without bunching or riding up, and the bow. Then, the felt itself. Little shadows could be dust/dirt, or they could indicate moth damage. I look as closely as I can at the crown, particularly the top of the pinch, to try and find signs of wear. This is a good indication of whether or not the previous wearer placed/removed the hat by the crown. If there are relatively no signs of wear, then it's a good assumption that the previous owner was conscientious enough to take good care of his property, and so the integrity of the rest of the hat should be up to snuff.

My two cents.

Regards, Andy

 

[feltfan]

So when was the golden age of felt? I've read where people say the modern felt can't compare. What age should I be shooting for to get some of this great felt? Is there a particular brand/model that I could count on having this kind of felt?

The right answer to this whole thread is to
review old threads on this site. There's a lot
to learn and anything we say here has been
said on this site before. I worry that this site
has reached the point where it just repeats itself
as new users join... Let's keep posting hats and
mining the copious archives here.

That said, IMHO, you're looking for felt made in the
1950s or earlier. The exception is Borsalino, who
made or at least used good felt until the end of the 70s.

There are occasional fine hats from the 60s and 70s.
The felt tended to be stiffer, but it could be great.
Of course that 100% beaver felt Art Fawcett is using
does seem to be pretty nice stuff. But when it comes
to the great vintage felt, you want something made before
the fins came off cars.

BTW, the brown sweatband rule is not foolproof... Let me
know if you come across any Borsalinos with grey or red
sweatbands- I'll take 'em off your hands.

 

[John in Covina]

Dollar

I have noticed that many hats have a dollar amount tied to it, the TEN, FIFTEEN, TWENTY, Etc. It seems these tended to be fine hats as reported by the auction winners, but the higher the dollar it seems the better the hat, too.

 

[tandmark]

Hi,

ScottyBlues, if your hat size is larger than about 7 3/8, you're not likely to find a vintage hat made of pre-1960s felt that fits you anyway.

Oh, it might happen if the stars are aligned just so and the wind is at your back. But it's just not worth worrying about.

I own exactly one quality hat from that era. It's even marked as being in my size. Alas and alack though, it doesn't fit, unless I want to look like Oliver Hardy or something.

Here's my take on why vintage hats are considered to be superior:

Before around 1960, most men (in the US, at least), tended to wear brimmed hats, mostly fedoras. That meant that there were maybe 70 million such hats being worn every day.

With numbers like that, there were a lot of manufacturers. They could afford to spend a lot of money on every aspect of a hat, from the ribbon to the felt to the stitching, etc.

Once the hatmaking industry crashed after 1960, the bigger hatmakers struggled on, but they could no longer afford to provide all those old luxury touches.

The big players downgraded their manufacturing techniques as much as they needed to. They survived one way or another. And so it happens that we still can buy factory-fresh Borsalinos and Stetsons. True enough, they're not going to be as luxuriously made as old Borsas and Stets were.

Does that mean that they're awful hats? Nope.

There are other hats that I think are better for the price, and there are other hatmakers who might let fewer hats with minor mistakes get out to the public, but those are different issues.

The fact remains that a factory-fresh $250 Borsalino hat is going to be a MUCH better hat than a $40 wool felt hat such as they sell at sporting goods stores, or a $60 made-in-China fur felt.

Since my hat size is 7 5/8, I'll likely never find a pre-1960 Borsalino that would fit. If I want a Borsa, I've got to get a new one. Believe me, wearing a new one isn't going to get me kicked off a bus, or sent home from work. Instead it'll get me the same kind of compliments I expect to get whenever I wear a brimmed hat in public.

Personally, if I had $250, I'd rather have someone like Art Fawcett hand-make a hat for me. Or else I'd buy two Akubras, Biltmores, or Beaver Brands. But it's not like Borsa is making their hats out of tissue paper and raked-up leaves nowadays! lol

Cheers,
Mark

 

[jamespowers]

JP, how would you rate Biltmore? Particularly vintage Biltmore?

Biltmore is a Canadian company that I have little experience with but I can likely make a guess based on their history. They were tied with Stetson for a while and finally broke free on their own. During the time they were with Stetson, I would say the quality was the same. Some say the quality increased when they left Stetson but that was not too long ago so vintage would be another story.
Biltmore, as a modern factory produced hat, is one of the better hats made in my experience though.

Regards,

J

 

[jamespowers]

Since my hat size is 7 5/8, I'll likely never find a pre-1960 Borsalino that would fit. If I want a Borsa, I've got to get a new one. Believe me, wearing a new one isn't going to get me kicked off a bus, or sent home from work. Instead it'll get me the same kind of compliments I expect to get whenever I wear a brimmed hat in public.

Personally, if I had $250, I'd rather have someone like Art Fawcett hand-make a hat for me. Or else I'd buy two Akubras, Biltmores, or Beaver Brands. But it's not like Borsa is making their hats out of tissue paper and raked-up leaves nowadays! lol

Cheers,
Mark

Oh the larger vintage Borsalinos are out there. They just happen to have my name written all over them:

I like your attitude though. It makes it easier for me to find them.
Tissue paper and raked up leaves?! Well kind of more tissue paper than leaves. lol

 

[feltfan]

Oh the larger vintage Borsalinos are out there. They just happen to have my name written all over them:

I've certainly found a few.
The good news is, a few brushings and that
"Jamespowers" smudge comes right off the felt.

My question is, what's wrong with Borsalinos from 1960 to 1980?

 

[Stoney]

Good points by all.. Dont forget the text

One more thing to look for is the text in the sweatband and liner. If it looks old fashioned, like art deco style, then the hat may be from the 30s or 40s.

So called Modern fonts from the 50s show up as well as phrases such as "Styles of the future" which would strongly indicate a 1950s hat.

The Borsalinos used the same type of text over a long period of time but you can hardly go wrong on one with "Original House" or "Antica Casa" on the sweatband.

 

[jamespowers]

I've certainly found a few.
The good news is, a few brushings and that
"Jamespowers" smudge comes right off the felt.

Not it doesn't. It comes back overnight if you try to brush it off. It only goes away when you send it to me.

My question is, what's wrong with Borsalinos from 1960 to 1980?

There isn't much wrong with them really. Its not the felt, its the styling for me. The brims are shorter in the 1960s models but they also made longer brims that you can find.
I am guessing you are basing the timeline up to 1980 on the fact that the original Borsalino family sold the business around that time. The name then became attached to a bunch of other stuff (ties, umbrellas etc.)and licensed to companies that just didn't keep up the same quality. :rage: