Beaver Brand Hats, gone?

[Duper]

I was just on the thefedorastore site after doing a search on a Beaver Brand hats. There were no hats offered and the following is posted on their Beaver Brand hats page.

As of October 9, 2012, Beaver Brand will no longer be making hats. We will also be discontinuing the Beaver Brand here at The Fedora Store. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to call us at 1-888-878-2428, or send us an email at sales@thefedorastore.com. You may also contact Beaver Brand directly. We greatly apologize for any inconveniences this may cause.

Very unfortunate. I hope they are able to resurrect themselves.

 

[DJH]

Aha, that must be why Matt Deckard is discontinuing his hat line as well. I wondered where they were made.

Matt said on his blog that the manufacturer had closed after 150 years.

 

[B.J. Hedberg]

I know I was really disappointed to see that post the other day. I had hoped I was seeing things.

 

[tonyb]

Well, here's hoping he finds another contractor. There are others, but not many. I'm confident that if he finds one willing and able to produce the styles he's shooting for, and if it's financially viable, and if the product is of acceptable quality for its price, he'll get back into it.

Yeah, I know, that's a lot of ifs.

 

[Walt]

I was just on the thefedorastore site after doing a search on a Beaver Brand hats. There were no hats offered and the following is posted on their Beaver Brand hats page.

As of October 9, 2012, Beaver Brand will no longer be making hats. We will also be discontinuing the Beaver Brand here at The Fedora Store. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to call us at 1-888-878-2428, or send us an email at sales@thefedorastore.com. You may also contact Beaver Brand directly. We greatly apologize for any inconveniences this may cause.

Very unfortunate. I hope they are able to resurrect themselves.

From looking at the company website it looks to be business as usual, but of course they may just not have gotten around to updating it: http://www.beaverbrandhats.com/content/Home.index/1575.0.1.1

I liked the look of some of their heritage western hats and was hoping to get one someday. I have one if their classic grade fedoras that I like. I think it is a fur/wool blend felt.

Clearly mass producing brimmed hats is a tough business and the economy still has a long way to go before we'll all be singing happy days again.

 

[Walt]

I just sent the company a message via their contact form asking if they are taking hat orders. I'll let you all know what I hear.

 

[1961MJS]

Hi

I drove by there place in the New Haven area and it didn't look like much then. No showroom, just a tin shed. It was Saturday and no one was there.

Later

 

[m0nk]

It's a shame that Matt Deckard's hat line is interrupted as I had considered getting his Powell... though I've also been thinking of having FPH make a William Powell/Thin Man hat for me with dimensions that fit my head better. It would be great to see Matt find another good vendor for hats, since it's great to have one-stop shopping like that.

 

[ottawa_adam]

I have a used modern Beaver Brand Homburg in mustard yellow coming in the mail. Will I be able to call it vintage now?

Seriously, that's unfortunate and I hope to see them producing hats once more.

 

[danofarlington]

First Biltmore in Guelph, now Beaver Brand in Missouri. I hope it's not a downward spiral. Actually, I thought the popularity of fedoras was leading the other way. Maybe the popularity of fedoras though only benefits eBay and Target.

 

[m0nk]

First Biltmore in Guelph, now Beaver Brand in Missouri. I hope it's not a downward spiral. Actually, I thought the popularity of fedoras was leading the other way. Maybe the popularity of fedoras though only benefits eBay and Target.

Yeah, it's a definitely shame. I certainly hope that our custom hat makers have a much better time of things, but I imagine that since most of them mat hats as a "hobby", being something they love, they will continue to do so in whatever capacity they can.

But I think while fedoras are becoming more popular (not just the cheap department store knock-offs, but the genuine article), every type of manufacturing business in the US and Canada has taken a huge hit in the past several years due to the economy. That makes it harder for every business, as supply costs go up, and the supplies themselves are harder to get a hold of.

 

[Undertow]

...Maybe the popularity of fedoras though only benefits eBay and Target.

Bingo.

 

[hatflick1]

Beaver Brand - Last Chance

Here's a shot at picking up a Beaver Brand for old times sake.
http://www.hats-plus.com/vsearch.aspx?SearchTerm=beaver brand

 

[gtdean48]

I always wanted a River Runner by Beaver Brand. Guess I'd better see if any are left...

Ordered the light olive...see if the order goes thru....
http://www.johnhelmer.com/prod.itml/icOid/35

 

[tonyb]

I'm cool with the cheap, Chinese-made fedoras sold at Target and the like. Indeed, I'm encouraged by it.

If only a very small percentage of the people (young people, mostly) who buy those things get into the hat-wearing habit, that's still a whole lotta potential customers in the pipeline for the makers of higher-end hats. (My education has it that advertisers target young people at levels way out of proportion to their numbers, because it is in their early years when people develop what turn into lifelong habits and preferences. Of course, my education is getting quite dated now, so I wouldn't be surprised if more recent research has changed the thinking on that.)

I wouldn't know what all contributed to Beaver's demise. But I'm curious about what will be become of its equipment. I take it that their New Haven, Missouri facility is (was) a manufacturing plant. Anyone here know if bodies were made there? Or if it was just a finishing facility? I can think of a smallish hat manufacturer or two that might have interest in what's left of it.

 

[Genuine Classic Gangster]

Maybe the popularity of fedoras though only benefits eBay and Target.

Is that not largely the fault of the current makers of fedoras, because they have very low standards nowadays? If they made new fedoras of quality that are on par with vintage ones, then vintage ones would have very little popularity, wouldn't they? I could be wrong, but my impression is that people who know what they are doing buy vintage fedoras mostly because they cannot get that level of quality in a new fedora.

Why don't fedora makers bother to make high quality fedoras any more? I can understand how a few gluttonous corporations might have decided to cut corners to save money, but why has that become a nearly-universal, industry-wide phenomenon?

In this post, I am speaking generally, I am not necessarily referring to Beaver brands specifically, which is a brand that I know nothing about.

 

[danofarlington]

Personally I don't agree with the analysis. I don't think it's quality that holds back hat buyers, and that TFL buyers are a small number in the scheme of things. Hatmakers need a mass market, and they have yet to find one. I do think hatmakers to some degree are at fault, but it's on style grounds and not on quality of felt grounds. I have to think if some different hat brands like Borsalino (in its many models) were more widely available and sold, that hats would catch on more. From the point of view of the manufacturers though, I think they have not cracked the solution yet. I think the solution is with a wider variety of good styles.

 

[gtdean48]

...
Why don't fedora makers bother to make high quality fedoras any more? ....

Because the profit margin & revenues are not there... We tried to work with HatCo to map out a vintage spec'ed hat, the 40's Stratoliner, which they produced a couple of prototypes. The issue came to the quality of the workmanship in the sweatband attachment & the ribbon treatment/edge binding. Same issue as encountered with HatCo's modern Stetson Stratoliner, plenty of reading material here on it.
We are a small blip on their radar screen & just lucky we can work with the Aussies & Akubra to get runs of Campdrafts!

 

[1961MJS]

First Biltmore in Guelph, now Beaver Brand in Missouri. I hope it's not a downward spiral. Actually, I thought the popularity of fedoras was leading the other way. Maybe the popularity of fedoras though only benefits eBay and Target.

Hi

I don't think it's a HAT downward spiral. I think it's just part of an American Economy downward spiral that's continuing in a slow steady fashion. It's sort of like Chrysler dumping the Plymouth line and GM dumping Pontiac etc. Stetson will probably be among the last up and around because of the name only.

Hope its not just a hat spiral anyway.

 

[Undertow]

...I wouldn't know what all contributed to Beaver's demise. But I'm curious about what will be become of its equipment. I take it that their New Haven, Missouri facility is (was) a manufacturing plant. Anyone here know if bodies were made there? Or if it was just a finishing facility? I can think of a smallish hat manufacturer or two that might have interest in what's left of it.

Although I don't have any info on the facility, I would be interested to know as well. That's alot of equipment and one would assume the company might sell it off to close any outstanding accounts. If one had the capital, one could start a business over night. Or perhaps in the case of a modern hatter, one could supplement existing equipment.

That is, unless someone like Hatco sweeps in and buys the place up.