Dating Your Hat (A Place to Discuss the Age of Your Vintage Hat)

[rlk]

Does anyone want to take a stab at age dating this hat as well identifying who the hat is made by? I'm thinking the 30s.


David S.

There may be a manufacturers label under the sweatband, but be very careful if the leather is not very flexible. I'd put it in the 1912-1935 range- likely on the early side, but easier to judge with the hat in hand.

http://www.leparisien.fr/laparisien...ntenaire-de-la-coupole-15-10-2012-2237961.php

 

[randooch]

Also, how come images that I post seem to disappear. Flikr was really bad, they would disappear over night so I switched to photobucket. Everything was going along fine for at least a month or more. Now today certain photos from various threads I have in the classifieds have suddenly disappeared. Is it me or does everyone experience the same thing? It is really very frustrating. Thanks

David S.

I know the feeling. The same mystery ruined an otherwise promising thread I started a while back.
Obviously if you delete a picture from the hosting site you use, the link won't exist anymore, or if you've exceeded your storage limit with them, but if not? [huh]

 

[Connoisseur_BP]

That Knox is from the '60s, and cost $20 new, making it a mid to up-market model for the time.

Interesting. Does anyone know anything else about it?

 

[Brian Niebuhr]

Man! I just pulled back the sweat on my 7x stetsons to find the date 1-3-86 written on it. Never looked before for some reason. Cool that a date was actually written but I was sure the hat was older! The font on the sweat looks older and the felt feels better than any of my other three 7x stetsons and two of those seem a lot older than '86. Hmmm. Must be 1886! Yep, I'm gonna go with that.

 

[sh71382]

Hello all, this is my first post to the board, always loved old hats, and finally bought my first pair the other day at a thrift store. Walked in the front door and they were staring me in the face and I couldnt walk away without them as they both fit my head! But i have no real idea of their age, they look older than me (30 years) but beyond that I am clueless, I have read up on many of the posts on this thread and gotten some small hints, but beyond that not many specifics. The other question on this particular hat is I am not sure is it supposed to be dented like a fedora with the pinch at the front or a homburg style? When I pulled it out of the box it was undented like a bowler, but it shows aged signs of having been dented for a long time, I just dont know specifically how. Well anyway here are the links to the photos of the markings under the band, the box etc... My beautiful Wormser, and later to come my Foreman and Clarke stingy brim! Thanks for having an awesome thread! -Steve

http://www.flickr.com/photos/40836944@N04/

 

[danofarlington]

Foreman and Clark! Now there's a venerable old Minneapolis name. Your parents may remember whether or not it was Mel Jass who always used to pitch them on TV in his old movie show. If the hat is undented like a bowler, you call that "open crown," and the hat awaits a creasing, or "bash" in Australian, where it is shaped according to your preference: teardrop or C crown, center dent with pinch, or other varieties. If I were you I would find a local hat shop and talk to them about it; let them do it for you, they'll have the styles in mind, and the equipment. Creasing your hat shouldn't cost more than $30, and in no case more than $50, I would say. You could crease them with your hand, but I think that won't look sharp.

 

[sh71382]

Well the Wormser was still very soft and workable, I just did not know how it was supposed to be. The F&C was clearly and always has been the shape I found it in, as shown in the added photos to the flikr page. As for the Wormser, it feels like it was more of a homburg style, but at the front it feels like its a bit softer like there was a pinch there similar in style to the F&C. But either way I am still very curious as to ages of both. Thanks again. -Steve

http://www.flickr.com/photos/40836944@N04/

 

[danofarlington]

I bought a black, pencil-curl brim perhaps Nutria Stetson hat that looks like a hillbilly hat, and in fact according to seller it came from the Ozarks. Sweatband looks very old for sure. Following the lead of Alan in a post elsewhere today, I looked inside the sweatband for markings. Very faintly, I see letters and numbers that could be Lot 90. Is that possible, and if so what would it mean?

 

[alanfgag]

I'm guessing you've looked at the photos on this thread? The stamp "LOTXXXX" is large and can be hard to read on some old hats, but I have yet to see an imprint that appeared to have less that three digits. Photos would be helpful.

 

[danofarlington]

I'm not good with the photos, and I can't fit the Polaroid into the CD slot of my computer. But no matter, the writing is faint. Now I turned it upside down, and instead of a faint Lot 90, it seems to say 06154, or possibly 0615. If there were other numbers right of that, they are rubbed off. I don't know what those numbers could signify, if anything, that we can know in 2012.

 

[Dinerman]

I don't know what those numbers could signify, if anything, that we can know in 2012.

They can help date the chronology.
http://www.thefedoralounge.com/showthread.php?62350-Stetson-Sweat-Stamps-LOT-XXXX&highlight=

 

[alanfgag]

The LOTXXXX stamp uses large letters/numbers (3/8" or so) and will show the letters LOT before the numerals. Most are four digits.

There is often another stamp that will have more digits. This stamp corresponds to the number on the orange reorder label at the rear of the hat. The numerals are much smaller.

The LOT numbers appear to increase chronologically. I've not studied the reorder numbers so can't comment on their significance or use in dating.

 

[danofarlington]

All I've got is a few stamped numbers on the inside, but no LOT. Could have been rubbed off. I guess I'll never know. But it's interesting, whatever is known about lot numbers. By the way, the earlier threads listed lot numbers of the various hats, but no estimated dates I could see. It's probably a mystery.

 

[Purplesage]

Age dating a Dunlap Twenty

Can any Dunlap experts help me date this hat. It's seen better days but I still like to wear it around. If it helps it has a 5 1/4" crown (with Center dent) and a 2" overwelt brim. I'm thinking early or pre 1940.

 

[Dinerman]

mid 1950s

 

[Purplesage]

Dinerman what makes you think the mid 50s. They made short brimed hats in the 20s and the 30s. Plus I have an Dunlap from late 40s or early 50s which has a plastic liner cover. This one appears to look and feel like silk! School me on the finer points of Dunlap hats. This just doesn't seem like a mid 50s hat but I'm not an expert.

 

[Brad Bowers]

Hat Corporation of America used that style of size tag only in the early- to mid-'50s. HCA also used oil silk tip protectors concurrently with plastic up to at least 1960.

 

[Dinerman]

Nothing about that hat says '20s-'30s to me.
The style of bow on the hatband is simpler than it would have been in an earlier time.
The combination of an overwelt and that length of brim is something you usually see mid '50s through '60s, especially a wide, single stitched overwelt like that. Earlier narrow brimmed hats were usually raw edge or had a different flanging.
That style sweatband only started to be used in the '40s and '50s, but the style and quality of the imprint are more like what you'd see on a '50s hat.
That style of size tag is consistent with hatco offerings of that mid '50s period.

Re: plastic on the liner tip, it's possible it originally had it, it's possible it didn't. I've seen a lot of hats where the plastic has crumbled or become gross and dirty in one way or another over the years and been pulled out. Usually when that's happened, you can feel a ring of it on the backside of the liner on the other side of the seam.

 

[sh71382]

Anyone have any thoughts on my two yet, Beyond the comment about Foreman and Clarke im still kind of in the dark. Thanks everyone and this is an awesome thread! -Steve

http://www.flickr.com/photos/40836944@N04/sets/

 

[Dinerman]

Anyone have any thoughts on my two yet, Beyond the comment about Foreman and Clarke im still kind of in the dark. Thanks everyone and this is an awesome thread! -Steve

http://www.flickr.com/photos/40836944@N04/sets/

The Foreman and Clarke is from the '60s. Probably the middle of the decade.

I would put the Wormser at the early part of the 1950s.