lbgradwell
Familiar Face
- Messages
- 82
- Location
- Mount Pearl, NL
In early December, I moved from Milton, Ontario (just outside Toronto) back to Mount Pearl, Newfoundland. My mother is a Newfoundlander and grew up in Mount Pearl from when she was 3 or 4 in about 1937. She lived off the island from 1960 to 1979 when, after my parents divorced, she moved back to her home with my brother & myself. I spent Grades 8-12 and a year at Memorial University before moving back to Montreal to attend McGill University and from there to Toronto (mostly) for work.
I told Mom several years ago that I would move back to Newfoundland when she felt she needed me and I finally got the call last spring. I needed a few months to complete some projects, but finally made the journey about a month ago.
For a month or so before departing Milton, I was in contact with a seller on kijiji (like craigslist) located in Brockville, ON trying to convince him to ship me the Stetson "Open Road" he had listed. For whatever reason, he declined.
I had initially planned to fly to Newfoundland, so I put the Open Road out of mind until, at the last minute, I decided to drive back instead. I was happy to find the hat had not sold and since my route would be taking me right through Brockville, I again contacted the seller and we agreed to meet.
The hat was in decent condition with a few marks and the silk liner had been removed, but for $30 I decided it would be mine if only so I could study it! I'm normally closer to a 7-5/8, but the hat fit well enough even though it was sized as a 7-1/2.
About a week ago, I finally had time to look at it and decided I'd like to re-bash it from a fedora to what I thought (perhaps wrongly) the more classic western-flavoured Open Road look. I gave it a good steaming over Mom's kettle and was horrified to see that the sweatband curled badly and shrank! This is not the first time I've done this with similar results, so I guess I'm a slow learner!
I threw the hat aside in disgust for a few days before trying to save the sweatband by applying leather conditioners over the course of several days. It has not been a complete success, but I can at least now wear it again in spite of the damage to the band...
Brockville was the location of the Canadian Stetson factory, so there is a decent chance that this hat had spent its entire existence in the town where it was made until I whisked it half a continent away.
Can any of you hazard a guess on the estimated production date based on clues in the features in the photos above. The re-order tag or size tag, perhaps? Was the Open Road produced for a known period in Canada? That kind of thing...
I told Mom several years ago that I would move back to Newfoundland when she felt she needed me and I finally got the call last spring. I needed a few months to complete some projects, but finally made the journey about a month ago.
For a month or so before departing Milton, I was in contact with a seller on kijiji (like craigslist) located in Brockville, ON trying to convince him to ship me the Stetson "Open Road" he had listed. For whatever reason, he declined.
I had initially planned to fly to Newfoundland, so I put the Open Road out of mind until, at the last minute, I decided to drive back instead. I was happy to find the hat had not sold and since my route would be taking me right through Brockville, I again contacted the seller and we agreed to meet.
The hat was in decent condition with a few marks and the silk liner had been removed, but for $30 I decided it would be mine if only so I could study it! I'm normally closer to a 7-5/8, but the hat fit well enough even though it was sized as a 7-1/2.
About a week ago, I finally had time to look at it and decided I'd like to re-bash it from a fedora to what I thought (perhaps wrongly) the more classic western-flavoured Open Road look. I gave it a good steaming over Mom's kettle and was horrified to see that the sweatband curled badly and shrank! This is not the first time I've done this with similar results, so I guess I'm a slow learner!
I threw the hat aside in disgust for a few days before trying to save the sweatband by applying leather conditioners over the course of several days. It has not been a complete success, but I can at least now wear it again in spite of the damage to the band...
Brockville was the location of the Canadian Stetson factory, so there is a decent chance that this hat had spent its entire existence in the town where it was made until I whisked it half a continent away.
Can any of you hazard a guess on the estimated production date based on clues in the features in the photos above. The re-order tag or size tag, perhaps? Was the Open Road produced for a known period in Canada? That kind of thing...
