A couple of quick thougts

[barrowjh]

If I snap the brim down to my chin, and turn my face into the shadow, hey, looks good!

just kidding. I have used those rules to help myself understand why certain hat types do not work for me. I have a longish face, maybe a bit top-heavy with the receding hairline, so a slight taper w/brim snapped full across the face, and tilted, is about as good as it is going to get for me. None of the 'off the face' styles work, though I have tried just about every thing. I have bowlers in black, brown, and green, hombergs in black, grey, and brown, and have tried the full-kettle-curl brim western styles and a mostly flat brim western style, all within my collection sitting in boxes downstairs, and all of them bomb for me. For hat crowns that do not have much taper (or none) the double tear-drop / C-crown helps pull extra felt in from the sides of the crown to 'disappear' and can actually create a slight taper and keep the overall crown height towards medium height, which is better for me. That is why I shape almost all of my hats that way instead of, say, the cattleman crease, which is more square-ish.

Flat western look -

Kettle-curl brim-

Brown Lee bowler -

Bailed-Out Banker, for a halloween hash run -

facing into the light

Yup, that's better -

 

[Omne]

Yup, that's better -

Sharp hat, definitely the best look of the batch in my opinion.

 

[bobm]

Sharp hat, definitely the best look of the batch in my opinion.

Agree 100%.
Which hat is that? Sorry for the newbie questions.

Bob

 

[barrowjh]

bobm, the last hat is a Resistol San Antonio (an OR clone). The clear plastic tip liner means it was made after the mid-1950s, and I suspect it was made before the 1970s, but cannot pin it any closer than that.

For quite a few of us here Resistol is just as desirable for wearing as any Stetson, though Stetson will always have greater name recognition for resale.