I'd love to hear more about this hat. My father sent me one for my birthday this year... he's an enthusiastic thrift shopper - he found it at one of his haunts. Hard to tell from these auction pics, but it looks like the same animal. I also have no idea what to do with mine... and I can wear a lot of different hats.
Which of A&F's nine lives is this from? Mine doesn't appear old enough to have come from the iconic NYC store that closed in 1977. I fondly remember walking around this store as a kid. It was the place to outfit safaris, buy a gun to shoot at elephants or a handmade cedar canoe. The contemporary A&F stores have quite a different style and fragrance... no relation to the original other than the purchased name.
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There are some custom hatters that do wondrous work and some are as affordable as factory hats. You get the size you want, the color you want, the style you want. What's not to love?
Bull Moose, I feel just like you do and that's why I quit buying on Ebay. Truthfully, I'm not interested in wearing used hats unless they get completely cleaned and restored, making them more expensive than new hats which I prefer anyway. My advice is to leave Ebay alone, buy fewer and better hats. There are some custom hatters that do wondrous work and some are as affordable as factory hats. You get the size you want, the color you want, the style you want. What's not to love?
Bull Moose, I feel just like you do and that's why I quit buying on Ebay. Truthfully, I'm not interested in wearing used hats unless they get completely cleaned and restored, making them more expensive than new hats which I prefer anyway. My advice is to leave Ebay alone, buy fewer and better hats. There are some custom hatters that do wondrous work and some are as affordable as factory hats. You get the size you want, the color you want, the style you want. What's not to love?
... conversely, I can buy 10 hats on ebay for the price of a custom. I simply can't afford high-end customs. And I have to disagree with the claim that factory made hats from today are just as good as vintage. I find modern factory made fedoras to pale in comparison to just about any vintage hat. Newer made fedoras just don't have "it." I know many feel they are fine, but to my mind they just aren't.
As to worrying about wearing someone else's hat... I don't worry about it at all. Nearly every vintage hat on ebay has gone unworn for decades, so if you're worried about previous owner kooties, I wouldn't worry overmuch about it. Chances are, the kooties and the original owner are long dead at this point.
Of course, there are two things that tend to make this stance easier on me compared to others. My size is a 7 or 7-1/8. So, there are a ton of vintage hats in my size to get. Most of them never worn, too. I know it's harder and more expensive to buy larger sized vintage. I think I might tend toward brand new ones if a vintage hat was going to cost just as much as an Art Fawcet or an Optimo! The second thing is that I just like antiques, so I think I'm predisposed to think older is better.
As they say, other's mileage may vary.
... I find modern factory made fedoras to pale in comparison to just about any vintage hat....
I need to focus my efforts to specific hats (still need a Whippet for example), and concentrate even more on specific types/styles'colors that I want (can't really justify the word "need" at this point ).
OK, what I don't get is an American hat company in Ohio importing a tradition Cornish-styled ethnic hat and then pasting their own logo on the original maker's mark. Who the heck in Ohio was running around dressing like someone from 1800s Cornwall?? It's all very odd, to say the least.
Ha, ha. That almost would seem to be the sort of off track thing I'd go for, wouldn't it? Still, I am a Scot, not a Corn... Conish..der... Cornishian... Corn.. uh... one of them.By the way, HatsEnough, don't you need these for your collection?