Bogart's Borsalino

[Brad Bowers]

Hmm. Bogart's hats always reminded me of Borsalinos, but the two hats in the photo don't look similar enough. There's an awful lot of taper on the hat in the inset photo. While I don't doubt that it's a custom-made hat for Bogart, I don't think it's the one from the movie.

Brad

 

[Hemingway Jones]

Brad,

If that hat in the inset photo is indeed Bogart's, and of course the provenance would have to be examined, it would most certainly be tapered after 50 or so years. Am I wrong?

I am sure you have seen, in person or in photos, the hero props from Indiana Jones, and after 20 years those are all radically tapered.

Now, I am not saying that this is or isn't the hat, I just think the taper-element has an explanation, and to get a definitive answer, one would have to go to an historian.

 

[Matt Deckard]

It looks to me like it is just squeezed in on the sides. The bashes were in the front in the movie, and on the sides on the hat on display. He's been handling it like a cowboy hat with a Cattleman crease and that makes it bow out front to back and squeezed in on the sides. I have vintage a Borsalino of a similar style if not the same and it has no tapering, though I can make it look the same as both pics by playing with the crown.

 

[Brad Bowers]

Could be, Matt. I played with my Borsalino and got it to look like that, but the side creases went all the way to the back. Can't tell how far back they go in the photo.

As for taper, I'd be surprised if Borsalinos that old showed that much taper. The ones I've seen from the '40s and '50s have little, if any.

I don't doubt the hat's provenance, I'm just not certain it's the same hat as in the photo. I'm always a skeptic. It could be the same hat, though.

Brad

 

[Matt Deckard]

It could be another one of Bogart's hats.

I think it's just a squeezed hat and not a tapered hat.