The Many Colors of the Whippet

[Lefty]

That's probably the one thing that's stayed with Stetson over all these years - the name Caribou Gray. I don't know if the color is exactly the same, but that name has been around forever.

 

[univibe88]

That second to last line has me intrigued. What kind of hat would have cost $100 in 1954?

$100 is a LOT for a hat in 1954.

 

[CRH]

Dead ringer for a Sears branded hat that I'm watching.

 

[Lefty]

only in that it's blue

 

[Feraud]

How many colors have we seen examples of? 4, 5?
Stetson's claim of 24 colors is starting to seem boastful.

 

[Lefty]

How many colors have we seen examples of? 4, 5?
Stetson's claim of 24 colors is starting to seem boastful.

I can't give you any figures from the 40s, but I've got them for Fall of 1929, showing that light grays dominated overall felt sales, followed by light tans. In fact, most of the figures related to light, medium, or dark grays and tans. "Greens and others" are at the bottom of the list for the Atlantic, South, Middlewest, and Pacific Coast. Interestingly, blues were at least slightly popular in the South and Pacific Coast, reaching to between 10 and 15% of total sales.

This doesn't show what it was like 15 to 20 years on, but it illustrates that the wide variety of colors, even when offered, just weren't as popular as the conservative ones. It's going to be easier to find the hats that made up 85% of sales than the various shades of green that sold less than 5% (at least in '29) in some regions.

Edit: I just pulled out the felt samples I got from Art a while ago. I've got 3 index cards with a total of 22 colors. One card, 9 colors, is all shades of brown/tan. Another card has 6 shades of gray and 1 black felt. The third card has 2 blues, 2 greens, another brown, and 1 red. Looking at the Art thread, it's pretty clear that his sales skew the same way the Stetson's did - though he probably sells more green and blue to us, since those are so hard to find in the vintage hats.

 

[DOUGLAS]

one of the grays

 

[jimmy the lid]

This thread seems familiar.

A 1940 Stetson ad touts the fact that the ******* was then available in over 30 shades. I think "shades" -- rather than "colors" -- is a better way to think about it. For example -- I imagine that, at the time of the 1954 "24 Color" ad, there were probably at least 4 "shades" of brown and gray, respectively. Throw in shades of blue, green, and tan and things start to multiply faster than you might think.

Cheers,
JtL

 

[kiltie]

There you go, JtL. Think of the various shades that make up what we generically call "silverbelly". I have an OR that I bought listed as a silverbelly but it's much closer to what I've seen called "sand" or "natural" in different ads and listings.

 

[J.J. Gittes]

$100 is a LOT for a hat in 1954.

$100 was equivalent to a whopping $788.82 in today's money.
I use this http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl .

 

[Lefty]

Click JtL's link. The 20 ways to determine what $100 was worth then has been covered.

 

[J.J. Gittes]

Click JtL's link. The 20 ways to determine what $100 was worth then has been covered.

Thanks for the heads up Lefty, I'll check it out.

 

[GWD]

This thread seems familiar.

A 1940 Stetson ad touts the fact that the ******* was then available in over 30 shades. I think "shades" -- rather than "colors" -- is a better way to think about it. For example -- I imagine that, at the time of the 1954 "24 Color" ad, there were probably at least 4 "shades" of brown and gray, respectively. Throw in shades of blue, green, and tan and things start to multiply faster than you might think.

Cheers,
JtL

What can I say, Great Minds think alike!

 

[jimmy the lid]

What can I say, Great Minds think alike!

:cheers1:

 

[rumblefish]

This thread seems familiar.

A 1940 Stetson ad touts the fact that the ******* was then available in over 30 shades. I think "shades" -- rather than "colors" -- is a better way to think about it. For example -- I imagine that, at the time of the 1954 "24 Color" ad, there were probably at least 4 "shades" of brown and gray, respectively. Throw in shades of blue, green, and tan and things start to multiply faster than you might think.

Cheers,
JtL

Jimmy, how about your green Whippet? Compare it next to mine- is it the same shade?

 

[rumblefish]

fftopic:
The binding on my green one is about 50% wider on the bottom than the top. The stitching that holds the bottom on is visible from the top. Was that an option or typical of a certain few year's model? This one I bought from Johnnyphi.

 

[HATCO]

Right now we offer about 34 different colors on our felt hats. I doubt they stocked them though, as back then the vast majority of hats had the shops name foil stamped into the leather sweat band. The stamping needs to be done before the sweatband is attached to the hat. Unless Stetson stocked sanded and flanged hat bodies that only needed to be trimmed with the ribbon and sweatband I imagine an order from a hat shop was made from scratch.

 

[Feraud]

fftopic:
The binding on my green one is about 50% wider on the bottom than the top. The stitching that holds the bottom on is visible from the top. Was that an option or typical of a certain few year's model? This one I bought from Johnnyphi.

Check out this thread.

 

[rumblefish]

Check out this thread.

And there ya go... answered in an hour. Thank you

 

[tempestbella42]

i do love a man in a nice hat!
excuse my ignorance but didnt realise all the differant makes and names......i thought this was another pet thread!! i had a grey and white whippet called Kimbo..............:eusa_doh: :eusa_doh: