H’oly Grail Westerns and Fedoras

[Just Daniel]

One more for the 5X Clear Beaver inventory.

Here’s another 40s 5X Clear Beaver, another nearly instant eBay BIN from a while back. If the 7X CBs mold like clay, this 5X CB is thinner, finer, and molds like butter.



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It would be great if we could get the 5x CB bumped with some current impressions and pics of current owners. As far as I’m aware, besides myself it’s only Alan and Vic. I don’t mean to sound defeating but these seem to be the hardest to come by of any felt offering from Stetson. But as others have hypothesized, it would be hard to imagine anything else coming close to the moldable density (not so much the hand) of the pre war CB felt. @Jesse John just had recently worked with mine, and I offered to send mine to Alan for a hand to hand review with his more impressive, albeit slightly newer, western 5x. I’m hoping to get others perspective on the 5x, as I have very limited exposure to other felt types. The crown on my 100 seems to have similar density to the 5x, but does not shape nearly as easily or as intricately as the 5x, which seems to take any dry bash you can think of.

 

[RossRYoung]

One more for the 5X Clear Beaver inventory.

Great one, Daniel! I guess I assumed that was auction pics, how would you compare it to your prewar clear Noots and 3Xs?

 

[Yahoody]

>If the 7X CBs mold like clay, this 5X CB is thinner, finer, and molds like butter.

Interesting comparison. I built a number of hats from Winchester's 100 beaver. Not all the 100% felts are the same by any means. And I am probably wrong as it has been a year or two since I did the last one. But I remember the lighter colored felts molding/ shaping "just like clay". I recalled writing that somewhere here I suspect. Anyway, fun felt to work with. And easy to build a nice hat from. The CB must be some really nice felt.