Is the vintage hat market dead?

[mayserwegener]

When my oldest daughter got married she didn’t register for china or any of the finery that generations in the past did. Most of her furniture has come from IKEA in flat pack boxes. It’s all short lived stuff meant to be used for a while, thrown away/recycled and replaced with other disposable stuff.

I wonder if people in Victorian times felt the same when the industrial revolution came along and manufactured goods went from skilled artisans to mass produced factory wares.

Hats and Hat Felt quality improved by leaps and bounds under mechanization. You still had super high skilled handwork but many new processes took place under mechanization.

 

[suitedcboy]

Lol!

View attachment 359015

What movie or show is this GIF from? I find it as a GIF but with no source info. It is a hat show I haven't seen.

EDIT: I found it, thank you Google images. Timeless NBC TV show episode.

 

[Edward Reed]

What movie or show is this GIF from? I find it as a GIF but with no source info. It is a hat show I haven't seen.

From an NBC sci fi time travel series called Timeless. lasted 2 seasons. I believe he was only in this time period once or twice in the series.... I think its still available on various stream sites.

Timeless American science fiction television series that premiered on NBC on October 3, 2016. It stars Abigail Spencer, Matt Lanter, and Malcolm Barrett as a team that attempts to stop a mysterious organization from changing the course of history through time travel.
The ten-episode second season premiered on March 11, 2018, and ran until NBC canceled the series in June 2018. One month later, NBC ordered a two-part finale to conclude the series, which aired on December 20, 2018.

 

[AbbaDatDeHat]

Dead??? Nah
Maybe just dampened by maturity.
It’s like the story about the young bull and the old bull up on a hill looking down at a herd of cows.
What’s the old bull do after he finishes??
We just get new bulls in groups and the old bulls become more selective.
As always YMMV.
Be well and safe.
Bowen

 

[Rmccamey]

It would be interesting to hear the female perspective on vintage hats, modern hats, and their relative value, worth or collectibility. Do women scour Ebay or etsy for pre-war hats or is there literally no market for such items?

 

[dkstott]

Vintage hats have always been dead to me. After seeing the moth invested / buggy / filthy hats at "antique shops" or consignment shops. I have no desire to own them. I certainly wouldn't take a chance buying a high priced"vintage" fedora on Flea-bay or other places.

All my hats are utilitarian and get worn daily. There's no purpose in my owning a vintage hat. If my newer Stetson or Akubra gets destroyed by weather, I can get a new one.

 

[AbbaDatDeHat]

Vintage hats have always been dead to me. After seeing the moth invested / buggy / filthy hats at "antique shops" or consignment shops. I have no desire to own them. I certainly wouldn't take a chance buying a high priced"vintage" fedora on Flea-bay or other places.

All my hats are utilitarian and get worn daily. There's no purpose in my owning a vintage hat. If my newer Stetson or Akubra gets destroyed by weather, I can get a new one.

Kinda sounds like you are in the wrong place.
B

 

[glider]

Hey, I can see his point of view. Not really how I feel about vintage hats or most of the crowd around here but I can appreciate his point of view. And we do enjoy reading about some of the new offerings also. He's in the right place.

 

[deadlyhandsome]

Vintage hats have always been dead to me. After seeing the moth invested / buggy / filthy hats at "antique shops" or consignment shops. I have no desire to own them. I certainly wouldn't take a chance buying a high priced"vintage" fedora on Flea-bay or other places.

All my hats are utilitarian and get worn daily. There's no purpose in my owning a vintage hat. If my newer Stetson or Akubra gets destroyed by weather, I can get a new one.

If you’re a size 7 5/8 or 7 3/4 then I agree that you should stay away from vintage hats: nasty old things!

I’m a “wearer” rather than a collector so the pedigree doesn’t matter much to me. The thing is, vintage hats are soooo much better than modern hats be they fedoras, homburgs, or westerns. Even if you’re willing to spend big money on a top tier custom hatter you don’t get the quality of a vintage hat. I buy several vintage hats a month and if you know what to look for and what to ask you will rarely get burned buying from eBay etc.

The Fedora Lounge was/is about the “Golden Era” so that remains a focus, but lots of new hats here too. I have and/or had dozens of recent Stetsons and Akubras, and with the exception of the short lived Stetson New York LE and it’s littermates, the better vintage hats have been heads and shoulders nicer. Even the highly regarded Stetson Stetsonian that was discontinued a couple of years ago pales in comparison. While I am careful with rare vintage hats they can take abuse and exposure if that’s how your lifestyle. Cleaning and disinfecting vintage hats is simple, but some folks have an aversion to wearing used hats.

 

[Snowman]

If you’re a size 7 5/8 or 7 3/4 then I agree that you should stay away from vintage hats: nasty old things!

I’m a “wearer” rather than a collector so the pedigree doesn’t matter much to me. The thing is, vintage hats are soooo much better than modern hats be they fedoras, homburgs, or westerns. Even if you’re willing to spend big money on a top tier custom hatter you don’t get the quality of a vintage hat. I buy several vintage hats a month and if you know what to look for and what to ask you will rarely get burned buying from eBay etc.

The Fedora Lounge was/is about the “Golden Era” so that remains a focus, but lots of new hats here too. I have and/or had dozens of recent Stetsons and Akubras, and with the exception of the short lived Stetson New York LE and it’s littermates, the better vintage hats have been heads and shoulders nicer. Even the highly regarded Stetson Stetsonian that was discontinued a couple of years ago pales in comparison. While I am careful with rare vintage hats they can take abuse and exposure if that’s how your lifestyle. Cleaning and disinfecting vintage hats is simple, but some folks have an aversion to wearing used hats.

My “collection” has grown to somewhere around 36 hats (from 2 - one vintage heirloom and one new Stetson). All my new acquisitions are vintage, and all are worn. All of them, even the lower quality ones, are of much higher quality than the new Stetson, and I have even bought some near-duplicates because of subtle differences in color, brim width, etc. I am more careful with some than others, ie: I don’t like to wear some in the rain, but I purchased each of them (OK, not my early 1900’s bowler) with the purpose of using and wearing it. If one gets ruined or worn out, I will enjoy the search to replace it with another vintage one. I doubt I will ever buy another new hat.

 

[deadlyhandsome]

My “collection” has grown to somewhere around 36 hats (from 2 - one vintage heirloom and one new Stetson). All my new acquisitions are vintage, and all are worn. All of them, even the lower quality ones, are of much higher quality than the new Stetson, and I have even bought some near-duplicates because of subtle differences in color, brim width, etc. I am more careful with some than others, ie: I don’t like to wear some in the rain, but I purchased each of them (OK, not my early 1900’s bowler) with the purpose of using and wearing it. If one gets ruined or worn out, I will enjoy the search to replace it with another vintage one. I doubt I will ever buy another new hat.

I’d be right there with you except the vintage market isn’t kind to those with larger heads. I’ve gone with custom hats as a partial solution, but the best vintage hats are still markedly better than the best custom hats. If Akubra or Stetson or ??? made hats comparable in quality to the better vintage hats I’d be all over them. Nothing wrong with modern hats, and I still buy some used modern(ish) hats if the price is right, but I buy them knowing what they are and not expecting them to compare with vintage.

 

[belfastboy]

One of the aspects it took me a while to realize is the importance to me of buying a great vintage hat...a keeper....is buying it from someone I know (well at least as well as I can know a fellow Lounger). My most special vintage hats are those that I purchased from fellow loungers rather than Ebay, Etsy. or...

My favourites are the pristine '50s Borsalino purchased from Moon, my Stetson Nutria purchased from Brent, the Resistol from LuvMyMan.... When I wear them there is at least a semblance of a personal connection.

 

[steur]

Interesting thread and some very good points made in several of the replies. My 2 cents: no, the vintage hat market is not dead and nor will it likely die anytime soon. There are loads and loads of vintage hats out there and of course it's true that the larger sizes are much more difficult to find. But they are there and they are sold and worn and collected. Will the interest in vintage hats die off? I don't think so: hats are articles of clothing and interest in clothing will always stay. Particular styles will have differing popularity over the years, as fashion always does. In that regard hats are different from areas of collecting that have far less practical application; I recently watched an item about the rapid decline of stamp collecting. While at one time that was THE thing to do for large groups of people young and old, it has now come to a point where there is as good as no interest in it at all anymore and you almost can't give away a stamp collection, let alone get some money out of it. You wouldn't have to explain to anyone what a hat is, but I can imagine one having to explain to a younger generation what a "postage stamp" is for.

As for the lounge. Well, of course it's true that when a forum is new, the information comes in at a much faster rate than when it has had several years to settle in and new information gets more and more difficult to find. As has been pointed out somewhere in this thread: we have a pretty good idea about a large portion of the hat-industry and the brands, so the idea that we're not seeing anything new in any of the threads is not all that surprising (even though it is wrong). The number of members here that actively search for that information outside of the hats themselves is limited though and to be honest the reactions to new information can sometimes be a bit lukewarm.

 

[The Shoe]

I am, apparently, practically family, but still feel decidedly like a newcomer to the lounge. Let me be a voice for the “frivolous” posters! Before reading this thread, I thought I owned a few vintage hats - a Brummel’s homburg from Stefan @steur was my first, followed by a Stetson Custom V from @Lexybeast, an Akubra on the local market and a Huckel and a no-name from @Daniele Tanto. The Akubra is late ‘60s and all of the others ‘50s. It would seem from what I’m reading, that it needs to be pre-war to be considered vintage. Still, I’m more than happy with all of those hats and I appreciate the more-than-fair price I got on all of them. A big thanks to all those sellers. I would not have second thoughts about purchasing from any of you again. When I was beginning my hat journey, I read on the internet that Stetson, Bailey, New York Hats and Goorin were the pinnacle. But this Fedora Lounge site also kept popping up and after joining, the quality of my hats has increased exponentially. Only Stetson (and Bailey Summer hats) remain from that list. I’ve reached a point where I will probably only buy custom or vintage felt hats (straw is another matter). I would love to find more vintage felt hats in 7 3/8-7 1/2 but they seem to be very rare, and, here in Japan, stupidly overpriced.
As for my “frivolous” posts (rest assured @deadlyhandsome, no offense was taken!), WHAYWT is today’s hat and as informative as it can be, when I’m after detailed, specific information, I do a search or ask a question in the appropriate thread. I just post what I was wearing on the day in the thread, often with some peripherals to try and make up for the fact that I can’t match the quality of hats I’m seeing from other members.

What I’m really trying to say is this:
* The vintage hat market is not dead, but it is very limited in my size.
* The Fedora Lounge is a great and informative forum. Amongst the anonymous squalor that Internet forums can be, it is unerringly couth.

 

[deadlyhandsome]

I am, apparently, practically family, but still feel decidedly like a newcomer to the lounge. Let me be a voice for the “frivolous” posters! Before reading this thread, I thought I owned a few vintage hats - a Brummel’s homburg from Stefan @steur was my first, followed by a Stetson Custom V from @Lexybeast, an Akubra on the local market and a Huckel and a no-name from @Daniele Tanto. The Akubra is late ‘60s and all of the others ‘50s. It would seem from what I’m reading, that it needs to be pre-war to be considered vintage. Still, I’m more than happy with all of those hats and I appreciate the more-than-fair price I got on all of them. A big thanks to all those sellers. I would not have second thoughts about purchasing from any of you again. When I was beginning my hat journey, I read on the internet that Stetson, Bailey, New York Hats and Goorin were the pinnacle. But this Fedora Lounge site also kept popping up and after joining, the quality of my hats has increased exponentially. Only Stetson (and Bailey Summer hats) remain from that list. I’ve reached a point where I will probably only buy custom or vintage felt hats (straw is another matter). I would love to find more vintage felt hats in 7 3/8-7 1/2 but they seem to be very rare, and, here in Japan, stupidly overpriced.
As for my “frivolous” posts (rest assured @deadlyhandsome, no offense was taken!), WHAYWT is today’s hat and as informative as it can be, when I’m after detailed, specific information, I do a search or ask a question in the appropriate thread. I just post what I was wearing on the day in the thread, often with some peripherals to try and make up for the fact that I can’t match the quality of hats I’m seeing from other members.

What I’m really trying to say is this:
* The vintage hat market is not dead, but it is very limited in my size.
* The Fedora Lounge is a great and informative forum. Amongst the anonymous squalor that Internet forums can be, it is unerringly couth.

Gary, did I make a remark about “frivolous” posts? I’m very guilty of that myself and it would be the height of hypocrisy for me to criticize others for making them. I’m sorry if I did.

I don’t know of anyone here who defines vintage as pre-WW2. I sometimes get irked when sellers label anything that is used as vintage, but it’s a small thing and is easily overlooked. To me, vintage hats are those that are, at a minimum, no longer available. The name can still be in use, but the hat (felt type, construction, etc.) needs to be out of production so you can’t buy a new identical hat (e.g., a used Stetson 6X Open Road from 2018 isn’t a vintage but a 4X Beaver Open Road from 1988 is vintage). Of course with my definition, not all vintage hats are the high quality treasures that so many of us hunt for. Very few of my vintage hats are pre-war. My definition of vintage is just my own thinking and I don’t expect anyone else to use it, and I have no problem with others defining vintage differently.

 

[The Shoe]

Gary, did I make a remark about “frivolous” posts? I’m very guilty of that myself and it would be the height of hypocrisy for me to criticize others for making them. I’m sorry if I did.

I don’t know of anyone here who defines vintage as pre-WW2. I sometimes get irked when sellers label anything that is used as vintage, but it’s a small thing and is easily overlooked. To me, vintage hats are those that are, at a minimum, no longer available. The name can still be in use, but the hat (felt type, construction, etc.) needs to be out of production so you can’t buy a new identical hat (e.g., a used Stetson 6X Open Road from 2018 isn’t a vintage but a 4X Beaver Open Road from 1988 is vintage). Of course with my definition, not all vintage hats are the high quality treasures that so many of us hunt for. Very few of my vintage hats are pre-war. My definition of vintage is just my own thinking and I don’t expect anyone else to use it, and I have no problem with others defining vintage differently.

Brent, when I read your comment about frivolous posts, I chuckled and flattered myself to think “he’s talking about me!” I quoted it in my post because it amused me and, yes, made me feel ever so slightly guilty, but I always remember and appreciate that you were the first (not one of, but the first) lounger to respond to one of my posts and to welcome me to the lounge.

 

[Short Balding Guy]

I am, apparently, practically family, but still feel decidedly like a newcomer to the lounge. Let me be a voice for the “frivolous” posters! Before reading this thread, I thought I owned a few vintage hats - a Brummel’s homburg from Stefan @steur was my first, followed by a Stetson Custom V from @Lexybeast, an Akubra on the local market and a Huckel and a no-name from @Daniele Tanto. The Akubra is late ‘60s and all of the others ‘50s. It would seem from what I’m reading, that it needs to be pre-war to be considered vintage. Still, I’m more than happy with all of those hats and I appreciate the more-than-fair price I got on all of them. A big thanks to all those sellers. I would not have second thoughts about purchasing from any of you again. When I was beginning my hat journey, I read on the internet that Stetson, Bailey, New York Hats and Goorin were the pinnacle. But this Fedora Lounge site also kept popping up and after joining, the quality of my hats has increased exponentially. Only Stetson (and Bailey Summer hats) remain from that list. I’ve reached a point where I will probably only buy custom or vintage felt hats (straw is another matter). I would love to find more vintage felt hats in 7 3/8-7 1/2 but they seem to be very rare, and, here in Japan, stupidly overpriced.
As for my “frivolous” posts (rest assured @deadlyhandsome, no offense was taken!), WHAYWT is today’s hat and as informative as it can be, when I’m after detailed, specific information, I do a search or ask a question in the appropriate thread. I just post what I was wearing on the day in the thread, often with some peripherals to try and make up for the fact that I can’t match the quality of hats I’m seeing from other members.

What I’m really trying to say is this:
* The vintage hat market is not dead, but it is very limited in my size.
* The Fedora Lounge is a great and informative forum. Amongst the anonymous squalor that Internet forums can be, it is unerringly couth.

Frivilous posts - no way. I enjoy your posts and views on the world that you share. I am in agreement that the great equalizer in hats is the thread WHAYWT. Your wearing whatever hat is meaningful enough. Sharing it in the spirit of the Fedora Lounge is excellent.

Space is allowed to all. The original intent was to feature "vintage" and the understanding of the details of these "oldsters." I believe that hats made today are inspired by the hat legacy of history and can easily stand next to vintage. A modern hat or a vintage hat does not detract from the other. They are different. The difference of that divide is up to us to ascertain.

The above said, I do enjoy seeing the breadth of hats over the ages. Folks espousing their hat choice is enjoyable.

On with the hat parade I say.

Best to all. I tip the brim of my vintage hat to you all. Or is it a modern hat? I will have to take the hat off to ascertain it's providence. Until then, cheers, Eric -

 

[Frunobulax]

Any hat, like any wine, is "vintage." The only question is, vintage to what year?

 

[deadlyhandsome]

Any hat, like any wine, is "vintage." The only question is, vintage to what year?

I think that’s a different use of the word vintage. It’s like the word “classical.” If I say a hat has a classical look am I saying it’s style is like hats made between the 8th century BCE and the 6th century CE which is the definition of the classical era? Now those are some vintage hats!

For hats, I don’t think that “vintage” and date of manufacture are interchangeable as they are with wine. As there isn’t a supreme authority who defines these things it’s up to us individually to decide what these words mean. I think it gets confusing if you say you’re wearing a vintage hat if it is a 2020 vintage.

 

[Frunobulax]

I think it gets confusing if you say you’re wearing a vintage hat if it is a 2020 vintage.

Ah, but it's technically correct, which is the best kind of correct!

"Vintage" is really a non-descriptive term, and leaves the definition unclear. To be sure, when we use the term we have something in mind - perhaps we mean "Golden Era" vintage (but there's even disagreement on what that means). Frankly, the 60s or even 70s are considered vintage by some standards. I can get historical license plates for a 25-year old car in my state. Is an '84 Citation historical?

Hey, I'm just here to muddy the waters.