Baron Hollywood Hats as compared to custom?

[Torpedo]

Hello,

I have been looking for interesting quality felt hat designs, with a view to future purchases. I have found Baron of Hollywood makes some attractive film-themed hats, like
http://www.baronhats.com/pd.htm
or
http://www.baronhats.com/JamesBond.htm
On the other hand, you can have these made by a custom hatter, although then they would not have a certificate of authenticity, which I imagine adds to the value.
Form the viewpoint of one intending to wear the hats, not just collet them, what do you think?

Regards,

Daniel

 

[duggap]

The first thing I don't like about Baron is the price they charge for a beaver hat. I don't know anything about their quality, but you should check out the Lounge's own Art Fawcett at VS Custom Hats. His beaver is at least $200 less and his quality is the best. Plus he can do any hat you want.

 

[Colby Jack]

Hello Torpedo...
I'm sure someone will be able to better answer this question but, Baron's never made the original Bond hat. So you'd only have a piece of paper saying that it is "just like" the one he wore. I believe it was a British made hat...either a Herbert Johnson or Christies or...the name escapes me right now. It's still a trilby, that can be had for a lot less money by Akubra if thats the style you want..."Lock and Co"...that's the name...I believe the Bond hat was from Lock! I feel better now...

 

[Undertow]

I agree with the above comments and allow me to add my own.

The hats look decent but the prices are scary. The fine hat market is one requiring research and finesse. Unfortunately, one cannot simply walk into any fine clothier, as in the old days, and expect to find something of affordable quality.

Currently, the hat market is saturated with inflated prices and ignorance; and please don't read ignorance as a negative against anyone particularly. The ignorance is in part because the buyers aren't aware of what they're buying and also in part in that sellers aren't sure what limits with which to settle.

So for example you have the Indiana Jones craze in which men are trying to buy decent hats but end up paying $100 for a wool knock off because they won't pay $250 for a shoddy fur felt.

The sellers really have no reason to charge less because they're not bound by much precedent. The buyers have little or no clue what they're buying and if they did, they'd still have little to contrast in way of price. So everyone goes on their jolly ways buying low quality hats (or high quality for that matter) at inflated prices.

I say stick with Art, his stuff is wonderful looking. And before you pay any more than $200 for a new hat, really think about what you're getting, make sure you're versed on the style, material and company history. Really make sure of what you're getting.

A COA is nothing but a piece of paper if the hat isn't actually worth more than two pennies.

 

[animator]

I agree with the other comments. You can have a hat of exceptional quality in whatever color and style you want custom made to fit your noggin for much less. I'm sure any of the custom guys talked about on this forum would even include a card stating your hat was a replica of a movie hat if that is what you want.

Art made me a Bogart style hat that is nice beyond words for just over $300.

Prior to finding the Fedora Lounge I was considering ordering a hat from a couple of different sources that would have been much more expensive and much lower quality than what I have gotten from Art. The knowledge I gain from reading about hats here saved me a lot of money and buyers remorse.

 

[fatwoul]

For the price of the beaver version from Baron, you could have Art Fawcett or one of the other custom hatters make you something unique...and still have a couple of hundred dollars left to buy your mrs something, to keep her from complaining about the fancy new hat.

I honestly don't get the Baron prices. I don't mean to slate them, but I don't understand how they can feel justified charging so much more for something that other people charge $300-odd for. [huh]

I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but Mr Delk's Adventurebilts are currently priced at a hundred dollars less than Baron Hats, and Steve really did make a movie hat.

 

[Matt Deckard]

Baron did have a lot to play in making the movie hat as well. they blocked many of them. I was in the shop about a week ago and they seem to be doing fine selling them as well. Pricing always depends on who you are dealing with and what you want. I'm sure Steve could sell his hats for 200 more dollars if he pleased but he has his price and Baron has theirs. If I ever go for a new Indy hat I'm sure I'll weigh the options out to the point where I just want the best hat I saw and in that case what's price. At the moment I like Steve's Indy hats better than Barons simply from a design stand point. Baron's instore fedoras and indy hats always look too western while Steve's look like indy's hat.

 

[Mike in Seattle]

On the other hand, you can have these made by a custom hatter, although then they would not have a certificate of authenticity, which I imagine adds to the value. [/QUOTE]

Actually, they're almost always sales gimmicks. They add little and usually nothing to the value.

We used to crack up about it, years ago, with some stuff we were selling. People would pay 15-20% more if we offered a "numbered certificate of authenticity" and we'd just crank 'em out on the printer and scribble numbers on them. These days, I'd just get a "handwriting" font and let the printer number them as well.

 

[handlebar bart]

The nice thing about the FL is the fantastic vendors and hatters here who along with buying a great hat you also get to support genuinely good people who will treat you extremely fair without gimmicks. Anything 'of Hollywood' doesn't appeal to me. 'of the middle of nowhere Oregon' I like. 'of small town Wyoming' I fancy. 'of back woods Mississippi' I relish. 'of good ole Texas' now you are talkin. But 'of Hollywood ..............I will take a pass

 

[Viper Man]

I honestly don't get the Baron prices. I don't mean to slate them, but I don't understand how they can feel justified charging so much more for something that other people charge $300-odd for. [huh]

Well, it is possible they charge more for overhead? I always thought Optimo was overpriced but they have a storefront in the Beverly Hills neighborhood in Chicago with a full staff. All of that adds to the cost I would imagine. If you look at Art's situation, he has a shop at home and no employees so it makes sense that his product is cheaper.

 

[Fedora]

Baron did have a lot to play in making the movie hat as well. they blocked many of them.

If I have to, I will post the email that Bernie Pollack sent to me and Mark of Barons. I don't want to, but if I have to in order to get it from the horses mouth I will do so. Mark helped Bernie re-crease the first 6 film hats. That's it. Bernie learned to do it on his own in N.M. and when the creases popped out in filming, Bernie put them back in.

Mark never reblocked a single AB. Period. Bernie called "creasing" blocking. And still does. His use of this term is confusing. I never corrected him when he was using it with me. But, I KNEW what he was talking about. Creases.


Matt, if you are really interested in the facts, I will send you the email Bernie sent to Mark, and cc'ed to me. It lays out exactly what Mark did do.

You have read the factual story on COW in regards to this. That you perpetrate the myth is puzzling. This is how myths get started, one guy writing something that is not factual. Which is exactly what you did. I have the proof of what Mark really did to my hats. Baron's has a photo secretly taken of Bernie and Mark as they were recreasing my hats. Bernie was really put out by this sneaky pic by the way. He was unaware of it, until I told him about it.

You can choose to believe what you will. As long as I have the "proof" that is all that matters. I can at anytime, prove it, while Baron's cannot. Fedora

 

[Fedora]

Well, it is possible they charge more for overhead?

That is exactly it. Overhead. The internet and home shops have changed hatting to an extent. Fedora

 

[Fedora]

Because I want the truth to be known, I have to admit right now that I was wrong with what I said in the above post about there being just 6. I re-read Bernie's email to Mark and it turns out he was at Baron's twice. Here are the excerpts from Bernie's email to me, that was sent to Mark. Now, Matt, you can believe whom you want. Bernie or Mark. I will put my trust in Bernie as he had no dogs in the race of who made the hats. And the rest of you can decide if Matt is perpetrating the myth that

Baron did have a lot to play in making the movie hat as well. they blocked many of them.

Here are the excerpts from Bernie to me.

Mark

The first thing I would appreciate is that you get my title correct, I am not a "costumer," that is local 705. I am a costume "designer" that is local 892. Bob Morgan is a costumer. Both very important positions, but I just wanted my correct role on the film stated accurately. As you know I "designed" just Harrison for this one.

Secondly, for my money it still is not really an accurate portrayal of what actually happened. I am not going to nit-pick every word etc., but you ask me to read it and I will give you my honest opinion. I was there two different days for two different reasons. The first time with just a few hats, under 10 to make several slightly different blockings "FOR THE TESTS" to try to see if a slighty different "this" or "that" would look better on Harrison. I even took a couple of your Baron hats, if you remember. It was very important for me to make sure, at this test that I had a variety of slightly different blockings, etc. so that I was covered for any eventuality. That was on a Saturday. Your shop was open, but you and a couple of your guys did devote your time to me and my needs, which I appreciated greatly. I was there the entire time. I never left the entire time we were working on the hats, nor would I under any conditions. If you remember when you tried to duplicate the hat once. I only gave you a photo of the hat, not the hat itself. Matter of fact I only had a few hats that Steve had made at this time because I wasn't quite sure what would look best on Harrison. We were waiting till after the tests.

As it turned out we ended up using the basic hat that Adventurebilt, Steve Delk, had made. We may have "sweetened" the creases on top slightly and the curvature of the brim, I am not sure.

The second time I came with the hats to your shop was on a Friday I believe, and I was getting ready to go on location to start the film. I wanted to go over all the hats that I had at the time, and make sure that they all matched the original one I had chosen at the "tests" That day I had a lot of hats, but not all of the hats had arrived from Steve Delk yet, as he is a one man operation basically and custom makes each hat himself so he couldn't get me all of them at the time. Matter of fact I received the remainder of the hats in dribs and drabs for several weeks after we started shooting. I "sweetened" them myself, on location constantly, you can ask Bob Morgan. Anyway that Friday we worked on those hats for quite a few hours, some had gotten out of shape from shipping and handling, and some were not quite the exact identical creases, dimensionally. I believe there might have been one or two that needed the sweat band moved as well. I bought your hat boxes for them and I left.
I even bought some of your hat sizing to take with me to work on the hats.

To my recollection, as they say in court, that is precisely how this hat "thing" happened. I hope this helps to end this "misunderstanding" of how the Indy 1V Hat was born.

As I have repeatedly said. I am tremendously appreciative of all of your help.

Thanks Bernie

If this does not clear up Baron's involvement, nothing ever will. For anyone to maintain that Baron reblocked my hats as used in the film is nothing more than a lie. An outright lie. And those that repeat it are liars as well. That is, from here on out. I can't hold it against anyone that were just repeating what was told them by Baron's.

From Bernie's email, it seems Baron's may have actually reblocked a couple of the test hats, I am not sure, since Bernie always referred to the overall crease job as "blocking". I think Baron's just threw in some different creasings on my hats, and Bernie called it "blocking". That is what I think. But regardless if he did or not, what was chosen was the AB, as Bernie says....

As it turned out we ended up using the basic hat that Adventurebilt, Steve Delk, had made. We may have "sweetened" the creases on top slightly and the curvature of the brim, I am not sure.

Fedora

 

[Fedora]

I re-read my post, and it came across as a bit strong, towards Matt. I did not mean it as such. So, instead of changing it, I want this post to be a "mea culpa" post.

I have just fought this battle over Baron's since last year when the Parade article was published, and then the rest of the stuff coming out of Baron's.

So, Matt, sorry for coming down on you like I did. It is just a sore spot is all, and I tend to react pretty fast, without giving it enough thought. I want no enemies, of my own creation. So sir, please take this as an apology. Thanks. Fedora

 

[mineral]

Hello Torpedo...
I'm sure someone will be able to better answer this question but, Baron's never made the original Bond hat ..."Lock and Co"...that's the name...I believe the Bond hat was from Lock! I feel better now...

Unless memory serves me totally wrong, I think this is the exact one:

http://www.lockhatters.co.uk/Trilbys-Sandown-P53.aspx

I don't want to accuse anyone, but that "Certificate of Authenticity" is very suspicious indeed.

 

[Mulceber]

I may be a bit biased Steve, but I think you're totally justified in your response - you've had to battle this false rumor mill for almost a year now and yet people who should be in the know are still misrepresenting the facts. Matt may have done this unintentionally, but I think it's fair to call him out on it. -M

 

[Matt Deckard]

All I have to say is you guys handled the hats, I didn't. I love the grey one in Indy CS yet thought some of the brown ones looked too fresh out of the box and I wish in some scenes it didn't have that side taper, like in the interrogation scene.

As for accuracy or who made what and when and what was done? Well when it comes out on DVD I'm sure there will be much more argument and discussion. I wasn't bowled over by the movie, but I do know that there is no other person I could think of that could do the hats for the movie other than Steve Delk.

 

[Fedora]

Matt, you are too kind. Thank you.

That hat with the taper is an anomaly. My first thought was, they had the back crease too high(supposed to be 4 1/4 inches tall) which showed the front and back taper of this particular block. As most know, most hat blocks have front and back taper, which crease out if you push the back crease low enough.

The other reason may have been it was the hat that got saturated in one of the water scenes, the one that Bernie did not pop out the crown to let dry. The second one that got wet, he did pop the crown out and it was good to go. But, I don't know the shooting sequence yet, and when that scene was shot. I think that scene was towards the end of the film? Like maybe the last sequence. Bernie told me he had enough hats left over for Harrison to make another film, so apparently he did not use them all. We made 9 brown hats for Harrison, and two grays. Which makes me wonder why he did not just grab a fresh hat? Fedora

 

[tonyb]

Having read the Baron's website stuff, well, I'm suspicious of anything they might say.

They don't come right out and say they made the hats worn by Gene Hackman and Sean Connery, but they apparently wouldn't mind if a person was left with that impression. Those certificates of "authenticity" are only further evidence of their willingness to mislead.

Yeah, it's true that any modestly savvy (and sober) person would likely see through their BS and take his business elsewhere. Caveat emptor, and all that. And we here know that only an uninformed and/or gullible person would think those hats are a good value. But to defend such practices is to defend taking advantage of people's ignorance and gullibility. They're the sorts of business practices that give free enterprise a bad name.

You came to the right place, Torpedo. You didn't know, so you asked. And you asked the right people -- knowledgeable people with no financial stake in your decision.

 

[Colby Jack]

Unless memory serves me totally wrong, I think this is the exact one:

http://www.lockhatters.co.uk/Trilbys-Sandown-P53.aspx

I don't want to accuse anyone, but that "Certificate of Authenticity" is very suspicious indeed.

Thanks Mineral...I thought it was Lock!