fedoralover said:Has anyone heard this before? That the original 10X quality standard for an excellant hat, came from the fact that it took 10 beavers to get enough quality fur to make a 100% beaver felt hat. But then as time went on the X rating became a meaningless term as everyone started making different blends. I remember reading that somewhere but I have no idea if its true or not.
fedoralover
gandydancer said:I have read that and many other explainations. The most likely seems to be that originally it was precentage of beaver fur in the blend in 10% steps. e.g 1x = 10% beaver to 10x = pure beaver.
Nowadays it only tells you where the hat fits in that particular manufactures range. e.g. Presumably a Stetson 5x hat is cheaper than a 10x hat, but you can not use it to compare it to a Biltmore hat.
fedoralover said:And the confusion continues. I have an original full page Stetson hat ad from a 1936 Esquire magazine that has a "ROYAL" Stetson for sale at $10.00. So I hate to play the spoiler GD, but apparently the Term "Royal" was in use long before the 50s. I have another ad from 1938 that stated Stetsons were priced from $5.00 to $40.00. $40.00 for a hat in the 30s was a lot of money.
fedoralover