Fedora Store Beaver Brand Xmas specials

[Duper]

I just noticed The Fedora Store website has some specials on for two Beaver Brand hats models. $169.00 instead of $249.00. There are the usual caveats, limited sizes, while quanties last etc., but maybe worth a look for some. I have never purchased a Beaver Brand hat and I don't recall reading much about them here on the FL but I am a newbie. How do they measure up against the competition?

Their sales commentary even includes that new word I just learned this week "bespoke".

 

[barrowjh]

Beaver Brand is Tops for Factory-Made

I have two customized Beaver Brand hats, one dark brown in their Heritage body (no beaver) and one medium brown (their Kangaroo color) in the all-beaver body. Their quality is on par with the best factory made hats such as Borsalino, and they allow some customization, which the other factory-makes do not (certainly not at the price point offered by Beaver Brand!).

Heritage body customized:

The all-beaver customized:

 

[CRH]

...Their quality is on par with the best factory made hats such as Borsalino, and they allow some customization, which the other factory-makes do not (certainly not at the price point offered by Beaver Brand!).
...

How's that 100% beaver hat working out, barrowjh? I remember that you purchased that one on sale. What a deal! It looks like the regular price for such a hat is right along side the custom handmade hats.

 

[Pilgrim]

I have a couple of Beaver brand hats, and they are good quality hats. Nothing to shy away from.

 

[GallatinHatMan]

I, too, have two Beaver Hats fedoras, black and gray. They are both very good quality. I would not hesitate to recommend them.

 

[Duper]

barrowjh, I find the Kangaroo coloured all-beaver customized hat to be particularly striking. You must give us your recipe! At least tell us what is the brim size on that hat?

 

[barrowjh]

Duper, CRH

At the time of the sale it was represented as a limited offer - only in black or kangaroo, and it may have been limited also to the Strat clone style. I think the only change I made (which may have been the default anyway) was to choose a 2 1/2 in wide brim. The limited availability may have factored into that low price point.

Now, the price is much higher for the all-beaver, but the appearance is that many color options, crown styles, ribbons, etc all available. I had exchanged emails with them about a month ago, and they acknowledged that they really had not seen any of these yet - still waiting on a custom order to come through. Based on my experience with BB, quality of construction should not be an issue.

I also own a custom hat by Art (Vintage Silhouettes), and to compare the two is not really fair to any factory-made hat. Those lite felts from Winchester, as hand worked and finished by the likes of Art, Mike Moore, etc, are as soft as most of my very best vintage felts. There are only a few vintage felts in my possession that are softer than Winchester's lite beaver felts, and that is likely just a function of time and many hand-bashings over their lives.

I just wanted to be clear about my opinion on Beaver Brand regarding construction quality, and the felt is also very nice, consistent, no flaws that I see. I have worn it quite a bit this fall, as I like to use the thin-ribbons between straw weather and regular fedora weather.

 

[Colby Jack]

Weren't the Camptown hats Beaver Brand to start with?...Then again I may be wrong...[huh]

 

[James B]

Beaver Brand Hats

12-11-09
Hello
I have 3 Beaver Brand hats. two are 5x and one is 8x. All seem to be better than stetson and as good or better than my old (1972) Resistol.
James B

 

[daizawaguy]

Welcome...love to see the pics!

 

[Blackthorn]

this may seem like an odd comment, but...

...nowhere that I can see on that website (maybe I'm missing it) does it actually say that the Beaver Brand hats are made of beaver. In fact it makes me suspicious that since they always refer to the "Beaver Brand," they are covering themselves from being accused of making them out of rabbit. It's as if they want to be able to say "Hey, that's just the name...we never claimed they were actually beaver."

Am I being paranoid?

 

[cybergentleman]

rabbit

I emailed beaver brand back and forth a bit; i tried to make the beaver brand rep's words in red- hope it shows up properly.

i apologize for the long post, but i think this is the most practical way of showing the info.

1) Thank you for emailing us. Since we are a custom manufacturer, we can combine any crown shape with any brim style. Regarding open crowns, we offer several different heights. Our Derby crown is approximately 4 ½” tall, our Keen is approximately 5 ½” tall to our San An Jr which is 6” tall. All are pictured on our website with different brims. What brim width do you prefer or looking for?
What is your time frame for the hat you are looking for? Our website will include retail pricing – scheduled for July 1st.
We offer several color options within our various quality categories. Midnight Blue is an option in our Classic quality ($139), Confederate Gray is available in our Legacy quality ($165) and Banker Gray is available in our Heritage quality ($185). The difference in qualities is the fur blend in the body and the way we finish the hat.
I hope this information answers some questions and prompts more. Let me know what other questions I can answer.


----------------------------------------------------


2 1) are your fedoras are made with fur or beaver felt? We have a wide range of fur felt. From all rabbit to a rabbit/hare fur blend to a 100% Beaver.
2) what would be the cost of a beaver felt? Our 100% beaver fur felt dress hats (with brims up to 2 ¾”) retail for $400 each.
3) can your hats be dry bashed or do they require steam? We have had customers shape their hats using both techniques. Steam is always better.


looking for:

I would like a non tapered crown, stove pipe. Probably 5.5 to 6inches high. Brim width would be variable. either 2.75 inch X 2.5" dimension, 3"X2.5" or 3 inch all around- (may be too large looking) All of our crowns have a taper to them. Some more than others. The crown with the straightest side is our La Copa Plana, but is 4 ½” to 5” tall and has the flattest top. Our open crowns have a domed top.

I would like the brim to have a classic swoop to it like an old fashioned fedora. Is your definition of swoop dipped front and back? If so, no problem.

Colorwise- either a very dark brown/ chocolate felt with black ribbon or very dark grey and bow, 16-23ligne Our 100% beaver fur comes in Black, Dark Brown and Dark Gray


or light banker grey felt with black band- 16-23 ligne, No Banker Gray available in 100% beaver fur.

ribbon height depends on crown height.

 

[Blackthorn]

Thank you, Cybergent, that answers every question I had.

 

[fiddletown]

One thing, I bought one of the Beaver Brand custom fedoras. It's a nicely made hat, but it is quite stiff in the western fashion, rather than the soft felt I prefer.

 

[Matt Deckard]

One thing, I bought one of the Beaver Brand custom fedoras. It's a nicely made hat, but it is quite stiff in the western fashion, rather than the soft felt I prefer.

Stiffer than other modern dress felt hats?

 

[tonyb]

Weren't the Camptown hats Beaver Brand to start with?...Then again I may be wrong...[huh]

I believe Camptown hats were made by the W. Alboum Hat Co. of Irvington, N.J.

 

[fiddletown]

Stiffer than other modern dress felt hats?

Mine was -- certainly stiffer than my current production Borsalinos and the Biltmores I've seen. Pretty much like a western hat.

 

[Brad Bowers]

Stiffer than other modern dress felt hats?

The two that I bought from Lee Keppler a few years back were stiffer than modern Stetson dress hats. However, wearing it while shoveling snow for two hours in a storm softened one of them up really well.

Brad

 

[Fletch]

Thank you for emailing us. Since we are a custom manufacturer, we can combine any crown shape with any brim style.
[...]
All of our crowns have a taper to them. Some more than others.
[...]
ribbon height depends on crown height.

Seems that there are limits to custom manufacture - unless you are a one-man shop doing everything by hand, which BB isn't.

Offering only tapering crowns surely has to do with economics. Again, a manufacturer (custom or no) has no reason to ignore such a basic principle of modern hat making. It's been so long since a straight-sided crown was made regularly that it's no longer even a question. Hats taper - some more than others.

Read further and you learn that open crowns taper more - which reminds us how "lost" the tradition of a straight-sided, handbashed lid really is.

But why insist on deciding the ribbon width for a customer?

 

[besdor]

Out of all the factories left in the USA , Beaver Brand is the only one that will produce special hats individualy for customers. Stetson , Bollman and Biltmore realy dont want to bother anymore . Part of the reason is that Beaver Brand is a much smaller company. I doubt they have more than 15 workers in total .
They do make nice hats but I think Borsalino is in a whole other league .

Steven
www.bencrafthats.com