Who made Sak Fifth Avenue hats in the 40's?

[Greyfox]

A friend brought over his grandfather's fedora to ask my opinion regarding cleaning and restoration. The hat's lining simple says Saks Fifth Avenue and the leather sweat band is stamped Leisure Flex Pat.2682175. He showed me a photo of his grandfather taken in 1949 wearing the hat. The hat is dirty with some sweat stains and discoloured ribbons but he wants to have it restored if it is worth it. Otherwise seems to be in pretty good shape. What do you folks advise me to tell him.

 

[Mario]

worthlesswithoutpics

Well, almost...

 

[Brad Bowers]

Hat Corporation of America (Cavanagh, Crofut & Knapp, Dobbs, Dunlap, Knox) made hats for Saks Fifth Avenue back then, but I can't say that they were the only makers for them.

Brad

 

[rlk]

Leisure-Flex Sweatbands seem common on 1950's Dobbs, so Hatco is probable.

 

[Brad Bowers]

Thanks for that, rlk. I was thinking that was a Hat Corporation of America term, but couldn't remember for sure, and all of my information is on my other hard drive. (Just installed a new hard drive, and need a power adapter for Molex to SATA before I can get my files off my backup drive.)

Brad

 

[rlk]

Leisure-Flex Patent-1953(filed 1950)

http://www.google.com/patents?id=3m...gbs_selected_pages&cad=1#v=onepage&q=&f=false
Photo probably later than 1949.

 

[Brad Bowers]

That's the one, thanks! I thought there might be a typo for the patent number in the original post, since the search for that number brought up some kind of drive mechanism.

Brad

 

[Greyfox]

Great info folks. Thanks a million.:eusa_clap