Orangehaggis
New in Town
- Messages
- 36
- Location
- Northeast Ohio
Greetings everyone, I'm Mark. I'm a long time reader of FL, but a brand new member. I own a Christy's fur bowler, two Montecristi panama hats (one of which was supplied by Panama Bob), several tweed caps and an old brown fur felt trilby that I recently sent away to be renovated.
The trilby wasn't re-blocked exactly to my specifications, but I could probably fix this quite easily with a bit of steam. The real disappointment was that the bow of the ribbon hat band was put on about an inch and a quarter too far back on the hat and is visibly off-centre.
Upon noticing this, I rang the hatter and after some difficulty communicating, I explained the problem. He became irate and launched into a tirade about how long he and his employees had been in the business, commented at length about the battered condition that the hat arrived in, and suggested that next time I send the hat back to England to be renovated. When I reminded him that I paid the fee requested, he instructed me to mark with chalk where I wanted the bow and to send it back, adding that I would have to pay to have it returned to me and they'd never do any work for me again.
The hatter is a revered old school hatter that I selected in large part because of what I read of his work here on FL. The problem was minor, but being shouted at over the phone has soured me on this whole experience. My initial instinct was to have my credit card issuer charge the amount back, and to mail the hatter back his grosgrain and logo-printed lining and starting again from scratch. All I wanted was the bow centred, but what I got was an earful.
I would be grateful for the thoughts of board members before I act.
Respectfully,
Mark (Orangehaggis)
The trilby wasn't re-blocked exactly to my specifications, but I could probably fix this quite easily with a bit of steam. The real disappointment was that the bow of the ribbon hat band was put on about an inch and a quarter too far back on the hat and is visibly off-centre.
Upon noticing this, I rang the hatter and after some difficulty communicating, I explained the problem. He became irate and launched into a tirade about how long he and his employees had been in the business, commented at length about the battered condition that the hat arrived in, and suggested that next time I send the hat back to England to be renovated. When I reminded him that I paid the fee requested, he instructed me to mark with chalk where I wanted the bow and to send it back, adding that I would have to pay to have it returned to me and they'd never do any work for me again.
The hatter is a revered old school hatter that I selected in large part because of what I read of his work here on FL. The problem was minor, but being shouted at over the phone has soured me on this whole experience. My initial instinct was to have my credit card issuer charge the amount back, and to mail the hatter back his grosgrain and logo-printed lining and starting again from scratch. All I wanted was the bow centred, but what I got was an earful.
I would be grateful for the thoughts of board members before I act.
Respectfully,
Mark (Orangehaggis)
