Anyone know where to get good hat boxes? I have a good vintage Royal Stetson I just picked up that didn't come with a box. I also would like a proper box for my Camptown Fieldmaster.
I know that Miller Hats has some, but they are pricey and getting them shipped puts them over the top IMO. This issue has come up before. If you find some, please let us know where, won't you?
I emailed Art Fawcett and asked him if he knew of someplace to get boxes, and he emailed back the name of a place in NY. He said he thought this place sold boxes in dozens. I googled the place and found a website and contacted them to ask. The response was that they sold boxes in cases but not dozens. I emailed again and asked the price for a case, thinking I would buy a case if they weren't too through the roof. I thought I could sell some to my lounge buddies and we could all save some money together. Well, I've never received another response from them.
The place is called Capas Hats. They will prepack a case of 36 hat boxes. It doesnt pay to send less than that. The shipping costs today are crazy. If anyone lives in NYC, you can come down to us and buy as many boxes as you need.
In my experience, nothing beats a Brooks Brothers hatbox. You can't buy them singularly, though, but I own four from various eBay hat purchases. Keep your eye out for them, they're very well constructed.
This one antique shop in town has WALLS full of them, more so than the amount of hats that they have. Stetson, Cavanaugh, Dobbs, and any other large American hat company I'm forgetting.
If you really want one, I could inquire about their price.
Here's the link to the previous thread. I never did much more checking other things have got in the way but may have to start hunting more after the holidays.
I just bought 2 hat boxes at the western wear store across the street. Sturdy, plain cardboard boxes with inserts for only 6 bucks apiece. For the guys in Washington it is the Renton Western Wear store, in Tacoma and Renton. If you live elsewhere I am sure your local western store could get you some nice boxes.
As my collection "organically" grows, so does the number of various, usually cardboard, boxes. Some are really worth keeping, like my Stetson 100 box, pretty beat up, but still of practical use. Or another old oval Stetson box, which I "restored", meaning it's been completely redone with plasticized wall paper and duck tape on the edges (meaning it's difficult to open and put the lid back on, because of the increased wall thickness).
But I have a few hatboxes I don't like, but keep, because I have nothing better...
A few months ago I bought a Samsonite round luggage hat box in very good condition. I took apart a cylindrical cardboard "hat support" so as to have a template, bought some sturdy cardboard, and re-fashioned a few more of these "hat supports". Then I measured and cut-to-fit a horizontal cardboard template to keep that cylinder positioned "in the center" of the horizontal plane of that Samsonite box. I makes a perfect, solid and permanent "hat box".
In the meanwhile, these very last few days, I won two separate eBay "train luggage" pieces, American Tourister and another very similar one, which I will use in the same manner. The shipment cost from America to Belgium is quite higher than the boxes themselves, which went for around $25-30 range.
The only drawback is, these are not large enough for my big western hats.
For those that are coming to the Monteagle get together in Feb, I will have about 24 hat boxes with me, They are the ones that most hatters use to ship a fedora in, they are the boxes that Capas Headwear sales. The shipping on the boxes was a killer to me.
I bought these to ship fedora hats in, I put this hat box inside another box and off they go, just got these hat boxes this month, been putting it off, but the shipping on hats has gone up BIG time when I use my other box for the wide western custom hats, so I am able to save a little on the shipping of a hat this way, when its a fedora type hat with a 3" brim and under.
It will be first come and first served on the boxes at Monteagle gathering.
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