Rust colored Dobbs Fedora

Posted on January 12, 2014 by Spencer Stewart

http://www.ebay.com/itm/271370292675
This vintage fedora was made by Dobbs for Wallach’s department store. It is a light rust colored fur felt with a long-nap finish. It has a raw edge brim and an olive green ribbon. It has a black leather sweatband, which has had the original markings redacted, and a replacement liner added with a generic crest. The liner is of a type more commonly seen in bowler hats, with a card backed liner tip. I’ve had several of these “redacted” hats over the years, I think they were unsold stock that was later re-marketed as a house brand by a different store.

Size: Tagged a 7-1/4 (although it measures out to a 7-1/8)
Brim Width: 2-3/4″
Ribbon Width: 1-3/8″
Crown Height: 5-5/8″

Rand’s Custom 8x beaver cowboy hat

Posted on January 12, 2014 by Spencer Stewart

http://www.ebay.com/itm/271370297140
This hat was custom made by Rand’s Custom Hatters of Billings, Montana in 1989. It has a pencil curled brim and a shallow Gus crease. It is made in their 8X beaver felt.

Size: 7-3/8
Brim Width: 3-1/4″
Crown Height: 5-1/2″

Akubra Drover

Posted on January 12, 2014 by Spencer Stewart

http://www.ebay.com/itm/271370326794
This hat was made by Akubra, probably in the 1980s. It is a wide brim slouch style, with a bound brim, grommets in the side of the crown, and a low teardrop crease. It is unlined, and has a narrow leather sweatband.

Size: 7-3/8
Brim Width: 3-5/8″
Crown Height: 5-3/4″

Peters Bros Shady Oak Bankers Special One Hundred

Posted on November 21, 2013 by Spencer Stewart

http://www.ebay.com/itm/271327357768
This vintage hat was custom made by Peters Brothers of Fort Worth, Texas. It is their famed “Shady Oak Banker’s Special” model, in the One Hundred grade, meaning that when it originally retailed for $100, at a time when the average fur felt hat in a comparable style was running about $20. The hat has a seamless welt edge. Cavanagh called their version the Cavanagh Edge. Stetson called theirs the Mode Edge. The hat has a narrow, western style single cord hat band.

Size: 7-5/8″
Brim Width: 2-3/4″
Crown Height: 5-1/2″

Peters Bros Shady Oak Bankers Special 75

Posted on November 21, 2013 by Spencer Stewart

http://www.ebay.com/itm/271327370482
This vintage hat was made in Fort Worth Texas by Peters Bros. It is a “Shady Oak Banker’s Special”, and originally sold for seventy five dollars, making it about three times as expensive as a fur felt Stetson Open Road of the time. It is made from dress weight beaver felt. The hat is a dressy western style, with a short brim with a stitched edge detail and a medium width corded western hatband. At some time, the hat must have had some work done, as it has a liner from Fort Worth’s other noted hatter, Hatter’s Hats.

Size: 7
Brim Width: 2-1/2″
Crown Height: 5-3/8″

1940s Mexican Export Stetson fedora

Posted on November 21, 2013 by Spencer Stewart

http://www.ebay.com/itm/271327386878
This vintage fedora was made in Philadelphia, PA in the mid 1940s by the John B. Stetson company. Interestingly, it was a rare export model, sold in Mexico. As such, it has variants on the early style reorder tags and on the size tag, with the sizes in metric. The hat has a raw edge brim and a self-felt hatband. It is made in a luxurious “suede finish” fur felt. The hat is creased with a teardrop crown. It has the early style detailed Stetson imprints on the sweatband and liner, transitional sweatband construction, and was sold by Salinas y Rocha, Alameda, Mexico

Size: 7
Brim Width: 2-3/4″
Crown Height: 5-1/4″

1940s Stetson Plastic Felt

Posted on November 21, 2013 by Spencer Stewart

http://www.ebay.com/itm/271327402640
This vintage Stetson fedora was made in the mid 1940s. It is made of Stetson’s short lived “Plastic Felt”, a wool blend with a portion made of “Vinyon”. The hat originally sold for $5, and was marketed as being water resistant. The hat is made from four pieces of this miracle felt- the crown sides, the crown top, the brim, and the brim binding, all stitched together like a cloth hat. The hat is stitched for extra strength. It is light brown with an orange ribbon, one of the “Autumn Shades” mentioned in the original advertising. It has an unreeded brown leather sweatband, with the Stetson Plastic Felt logo.

Size: 7
Brim Width: 2-1/2″
Crown Height: 4-1/2″

Stetson Moose River

Posted on November 21, 2013 by Spencer Stewart

http://www.ebay.com/itm/271327411225

This hat was made by the John B. Stetson company for LL Bean. It is a variation on the classic “Open Road” model, but with a narrower, raw edge. It looks like the original owner followed the marketing and wore it as a rugged outdoorsy type of fedora. As such, the sweatband needs to be replaced.

Size: 7-1/8
Brim Width: 2-1/2″
Crown Height: 5-1/4″

Fritz Huckel fedora

Posted on November 17, 2013 by Spencer Stewart

http://www.ebay.com/itm/271323757917
This vintage fedora was made in Weilheim, Western Germany by Fritz Huckel Hutmacher, and was sold by the Star Clothing Company, Inc., of Yakima, Washington. It is a fur felt “ultra” velour, with a tall crown and a wide overwelt. It has a nicely detailed back bow. The liner has a fancy stitching detail, and lists all the gold medals won by the hatmaker. It has a brown leather reeded sweatband, with a taped rear seam and fancy decorative ribbon.

Size: 7-1/8
Brim Width: 2-1/2″
Ribbon Width: 1-3/4″
Crown Height: 5-3/4″

1910s Montgomery Ward cowboy hat

Posted on November 10, 2013 by Spencer Stewart

http://www.ebay.com/itm/271318501864
This vintage western hat was made in the 1910s or 1920s, and was sold by Montgomery Ward. It is made of black fur felt, with a pencil curled brim, and a narrow ribbon with a western style bow. It has a tall crown, creased with a center dent and front pinches, though the felt is such that it can easily be re-creased as you so choose. The hat is unlined and has a brown leather sweatband, embossed with an early Montgomery Ward crest. The reorder tag, indicating the hat is a size 7, is of a generic style and doesn’t offer many clues as to who made the hat for Ward’s.

Size: 7
Brim Width: 3″
Ribbon Width: 3/8″
Crown Height:5-5/8″

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Category Archives: Hats

Rust colored Dobbs Fedora

Rand’s Custom 8x beaver cowboy hat

Akubra Drover

Peters Bros Shady Oak Bankers Special One Hundred

Peters Bros Shady Oak Bankers Special 75

1940s Mexican Export Stetson fedora

1940s Stetson Plastic Felt

Stetson Moose River

Fritz Huckel fedora

1910s Montgomery Ward cowboy hat