Ebay Hats: Victories, Defeats, Gripes & Items of Interest

[suitedcboy]

I won this one just the other day: http://www.ebay.com/itm/121195181086?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649 I got a pretty good deal I think

Looks like you scored a great one there. I know you'll post pics when it arrives. I'm subscribed.

 

[John Galt]

The tag reads "The Panama Hat Company of the Pacific"
that dba Brent Black Panama Hats 111 Hekili Street, Suite A-293 Kailua, HI 96734

Ah, missed that. Good to know, thx.


"Faint hat never won fair lady."

 

[fedoracentric]

This guy has a Penn Craft top hat and wants more than he'll ever get for it, especially since it is a tiny size... and has been selling it for a long time...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Antique-Pen...110?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item19e0a2c53e

I post having no fear that I am compromising someone's watch list!

Anyway, my question is about the Penn Craft company. I've looked here on the site and there are several mentions of Penn Craft and a few pics of Penn Craft hats, but no info about the company.

Online I see ads for Penn Craft as late as 1953 and one entry about a company listing in Pennsylvania in 1934.

But I can't find a single thing else out about this company. Does anyone have any info?

 

[carouselvic]

Supernatural Leghorn

The seller was kind enough to re-flange the hat for me. Retailed at Myers Brothers in Springfield IL for $12.75.

 

[Lotsahats]

:eusa_doh:

 

[Rick Blaine]

This guy has a Penn Craft top hat and wants more than he'll ever get for it, especially since it is a tiny size... and has been selling it for a long time...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Antique-Pen...110?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item19e0a2c53e

I post having no fear that I am compromising someone's watch list!

Anyway, my question is about the Penn Craft company. I've looked here on the site and there are several mentions of Penn Craft and a few pics of Penn Craft hats, but no info about the company.

Online I see ads for Penn Craft as late as 1953 and one entry about a company listing in Pennsylvania in 1934.

But I can't find a single thing else out about this company. Does anyone have any info?

"Although most responses to the Great Depression were government directed, Penn-Craft testifies to the persistence of private, "faith-based" relief initiatives. In the heart of the Great Depression, the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), the social services arm of the Society of Friends (Quakers) created Penn-Craft, a planned cooperative community as ambitious as any program sponsored by the federal government."

 

[fedoracentric]

"Although most responses to the Great Depression were government directed, Penn-Craft testifies to the persistence of private, "faith-based" relief initiatives. In the heart of the Great Depression, the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), the social services arm of the Society of Friends (Quakers) created Penn-Craft, a planned cooperative community as ambitious as any program sponsored by the federal government."

OK, so, while I see the above entry in a Google Books page on planned communities, I see nothing that associates Stetson's Penn-Craft hats with the Pennsylvania-based Penn Craft Quaker community. And none of the ads I've ever seen featuring the Stetson Penn-Craft hat makes any allusion at all to the religious community. IF they were associated you'd think the connection would be made at least once in a while.

It would make sense, of course, if the Penn Craft community had a hat making center with their woolen makers and coal mining, I agree. But, I've never seen anything that explicitly says that they made hats. I even emailed the local history society and they had no knowledge of hat making in the Penn Craft community.

Further complicating things, the Penn Craft community started in 1937, but the Stetson Penn-Craft copyright is dated 1935.

So, I really don't think the Pennsylvania Quakers had anything to do with the Stetson hats. But I just don't know.

 

[Rick Blaine]

OK, so, while I see the above entry in a Google Books page on planned communities, I see nothing that associates Stetson's Penn-Craft hats with the Pennsylvania-based Penn Craft Quaker community. And none of the ads I've ever seen featuring the Stetson Penn-Craft hat makes any allusion at all to the religious community. IF they were associated you'd think the connection would be made at least once in a while.

It would make sense, of course, if the Penn Craft community had a hat making center with their woolen makers and coal mining, I agree. But, I've never seen anything that explicitly says that they made hats. I even emailed the local history society and they had no knowledge of hat making in the Penn Craft community.

Further complicating things, the Penn Craft community started in 1937, but the Stetson Penn-Craft copyright is dated 1935.

So, I really don't think the Pennsylvania Quakers had anything to do with the Stetson hats. But I just don't know.

Penn-craft was a copyrighted & registered trademark that I don't think JB Stetson could use without an arrangement or affiliation between the two.

Further, being a Philly based company, does one think JBS could not have failed to be aware of this undertaking in western Pa. while putting out a line of hats under the very same name?
I don't think so, low probability.

Further yet-


Catalog of Copyright Entries. Part 4. Works of Art, Etc. New Series
By Library of Congress. Copyright Office

To put the cork in the bottle, Stetsons' new copyrights were filed the very same date in '35 , one page distant, as was Penn-crafts' single © .

Still lookin' for the smoking gun, as yet all seems circumstantial, but I very much believe there was an intimate connection.


But I've been wrong before. Just ask my wife! :eusa_doh:

 

[Miamibruno]

The seller was kind enough to re-flange the hat for me. Retailed at Myers Brothers in Springfield IL for $12.75.

Carouselvic,

Really. How hard is it to get a suitable box and a little bit of paper? Jeeze. Obviously, not hat people.

 

[fedoracentric]

Still lookin' for the smoking gun, as yet all seems circumstantial, but I very much believe there was an intimate connection.

Yeah, we do have circumstantial evidence just in the name. But since the community didn't happen for a few years after Stetson filed its own copyrights, it is very possible there is no direct connection at all.

I suppose it is possible that Stetson was sort of circling around the idea and was familiar with the mounting Penn Craft community effort... but I just don't see any "smoking gun" connection, as you say.

I would also note that it seems that the Penn Craft community originally didn't have the dash in the name like the Stetson Penn-Craft name. Oddly, many webpages put the dash in when they are talking about the community, but the older books and historical markers have no dash in the name. There seems to be some confusion on that.

Anyway, I am wondering if Stetson was responding to a growing trend when it copyrighted its new hat division but that it wasn't actually connected to the Penn Craft community that was still a few years off into the future.

I have to say, since we've not seen any real connection, it looks to me that Stetson's Penn-Craft hats had nothing at all to do with the religious community in western Pennsylvania (on the complete opposite side of the state from Stetson's Philly plant, I'll also note).

I think we have more research to do. But I am at my limits, here.

Maybe some mention of the Stetson Penn-Craft effort is made in the hat manufacturer's journals of 1935? Anyone have any?

 

[Rick Blaine]

Yeah, we do have circumstantial evidence just in the name. But since the community didn't happen for a few years after Stetson filed its own copyrights, it is very possible there is no direct connection at all.

I suppose it is possible that Stetson was sort of circling around the idea and was familiar with the mounting Penn Craft community effort... but I just don't see any "smoking gun" connection, as you say.

I would also note that it seems that the Penn Craft community originally didn't have the dash in the name like the Stetson Penn-Craft name. Oddly, many webpages put the dash in when they are talking about the community, but the older books and historical markers have no dash in the name. There seems to be some confusion on that.

Anyway, I am wondering if Stetson was responding to a growing trend when it copyrighted its new hat division but that it wasn't actually connected to the Penn Craft community that was still a few years off into the future.

I have to say, since we've not seen any real connection, it looks to me that Stetson's Penn-Craft hats had nothing at all to do with the religious community in western Pennsylvania (on the complete opposite side of the state from Stetson's Philly plant, I'll also note).

I think we have more research to do. But I am at my limits, here.

Maybe some mention of the Stetson Penn-Craft effort is made in the hat manufacturer's journals of 1935? Anyone have any?

...yes, you may well be right. [huh]

 

[Rick Blaine]

Towncraft (by Lee-?) thin ribbon



:whoo:

 

[ofcoursemyhorse]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Min...Rg5WhFaiVRUeCcqTKcVXg%3D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc


I think its safe to assume someone from this forum snagged this little beauty. My first time seeing a Dobbs 100 and color me impressed.

 

[fedoracentric]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Min...Rg5WhFaiVRUeCcqTKcVXg%3D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc


I think its safe to assume someone from this forum snagged this little beauty. My first time seeing a Dobbs 100 and color me impressed.

As noted on another thread, for who ever bought that hat... for $356, I hope they know it is not a 1940s hat as advertised. It is a 50s hat.

 

[alanfgag]

Not the first time an incorrect decade has appeared in a seller's description. The majority of one hundred dollar hats that surface for sale are thin ribbon Stetsons from the 1960s. A fedora style 100 from the mid 1950s remains elusive quarry. I expect the buyer of this hat will receive a clear beaver body of very high quality. There were relatively few watchers on this hat and only two bidders past $165.

 

[Dinerman]

Speaking of older high quality hats, check this one out. A 7-3/8, I just sold it at a loss, just over its original purchase price. I know there's no interest in stingies, but a rare, high quality Stetson.

 

[buler]

As noted on another thread, for who ever bought that hat... for $356, I hope they know it is not a 1940s hat as advertised. It is a 50s hat.

We have loungers, who have access to all of our hat info, incorrectly date hats all of the time. Can't expect ebay sellers to get it right.

B

 

[fedoracentric]

We have loungers, who have access to all of our hat info, incorrectly date hats all of the time. Can't expect ebay sellers to get it right.

B

LOL. True enough.

 

[fedoracentric]

Speaking of older high quality hats, check this one out. A 7-3/8, I just sold it at a loss, just over its original purchase price. I know there's no interest in stingies, but a rare, high quality Stetson.

Yeah, probably the brim size.

But a Stetson 40, that really is uncommon. The only other one I've ever seen was from the 50s.

 

[John Galt]

Speaking of older high quality hats, check this one out. A 7-3/8, I just sold it at a loss, just over its original purchase price. I know there's no interest in stingies, but a rare, high quality Stetson.

I noted it but it was not my size (too big) and I am tapped out at the moment. I think I have seen only one other on eBay, years back. The stingy brim would not have stopped me bidding if the size & timing were right.




"Faint hat never won fair lady."