My new old Stetson

[Joseph Casazza]

Here is a photo of me in my Stetson silverbelly "Open Road" set up as a fedora, center dent, pinched. Maybe 1950's - I haven't determined the date yet. Open crown, nice soft felt. Originally sold by Joske's of Texas, which was still in business when I last lived there, but I believe is gone now. A few remaining wrinkles left by the original "Open Road" dents which I have steamed out, but not quite completely. I also cleaned the hat up with white vinegar. seems to have worked fine. Any comments or suggestions would be welcomed and appreciated.

 

[D. Hats]

Joseph,
Did you re-set the crown to a Fedora style?
I have an old Open Road with the western style crown. I've seen others with the Fedora look and have often considered having mine re-shaped, but don't want to violate any code of ethics....

 

[Hemingway Jones]

The only code of ethics I can think of is wear it! -Perhaps we should all draft a code of ethics as an exercize in perspective.

Casazza, that is a beautiful hat. All you need is a nice suit to pair it with. Outstanding!
Where did you hear about the white vinegar as cleaner trick?

 

[Solid Citizen]

Steaming Pointers?

Joseph, could you give us novices a few pointers on steaming hats in regards to what you used & how you did it? Thanks! Peter

 

[Solid Citizen]

White Vinegar?

Should have also asked how you applied the vinegar method & amounts to clean your Stetson. Really prefer the shape of your hat now that you changed it very 1940's. Peter :cool2:

 

[Biltmore Bob]

Does it smell like a pickle?

 

[Pilgrim]

I'll admit that I'm most fond of Open Roads in their classic shape, mostly because they have such history. I have a very old and soft Open Road that I have shaped in classic style and like very much. Of course, in Colorado and most of the Western US, an Open Road is never out of style as a gentlemen's Western hat.

So pardon me in advance for having a bias - but I'll also stick up for anyone's right to shape their hat in the way they like best and feel is most flattering to them! It's not my hat, nor my decision!

GOOD for you! Looks fine on you!

Now if I can just find that grey Open Road that I want! I'll keep looking, and sooner or later...

 

[Solid Citizen]

Joseph's Reconfigured Open Road

Pilgrim, I would concur it would look right in Colorado or Wyoming as a straight Open Road, but here in Maryland, out of place. I like what Joseph did, if you can't get a Stratoliner this is the next best alternative. Peter :cool2:

 

[CasaBlancaChuck]

Joseph...you look great in that hat!! I have many hats, both fedoras and Westerns, and I keep coming back to that Open Road with the pinched front and snap brim. My favorite is the Stetson 25 Open Road with pinched front and the wind trolley. It looks just like the one you're wearing. I put one of the JBS branding iron pins on it for more pizzazz. I usually wear it with a vintage WW II Peacoat. As a matter of fact, I wore it to a great Italian restaurant this evening named Mangia!...you probably can translate that. A person I knew there greeted me with "hay cowboy" and I'm just thinking...how can anybody with any intell....But he meant well and it was meant as a compliment (I think). Those hats just say Adventure!!!... Open Road!!!!
Best wishes and a Merry Christmas to all!

 

[tonyb]

I got an Open Road just like it, just a few weeks back, for all of 25 bucks. It's probably about the same vintage, with a wind cord and a fedora pinch. Twenty or more years ago I and a couple of guys I know went through something of an Open Road phase. They were sold open crowned then and our local retailer carried only the 3X variety. (Maybe that's all they made during that era. Couldn't tell you either way.) There became something of a running joke between us. One or another of us would see a guy wearing one and say, "Isn't that a jen-yew-wine John B. Stetson Open Road 3X Beaver you're wearing?"
Now I hear they no longer come open crowned, but only with the cattleman's bash, and only in black or silverbelly. That's what the local retailer tells me, anyway, and that's all he stocks. These days, they're about as supple as the boxes they come in. But I almost bought a new one anyway, because, well, I wouldn't worry about beating it up and on rare occasion I find myself in a more "western" sort of setting. But then, several days ago, I found one on eBay, a light gray one with a cattleman's bash that's allegedly in quite fine condition. The closeup photos seemed to confirm that, but I'll be a real believer when I hold it in my paws. Anyway, it also has a wind cord (and a couple of other clues that it's not a "modern" hat) and I got it for somewhat less than half the cost of one of those new cardboard jobs, so I trust I'll be satisfied with my purchase, once it arrives. If it was good enough for LBJ and DDE and HST, it's good enough for me.

 

[riccardo]

Hi to all,
I've an Open Road shaped like the Joseph's.
I prefer to wear it in this shape...I don't live in the Far WesT .
Mine is in a light brown color, like the sand.
I've changed the sweatband, my friend Sergio Anzani did it for me.
I think it's a great hat...when a Stratoliner there isn't.
I think that i'm going to purchasing another Open Road in silver belly,this time!!
Joseph, yours has a great shape:compliments.

Best regards.

Riccardo.

 

[John in Covina]

Wow that hat simply looks great! As to perspective on changing a hat, if it is really rare, was once owned by someone famous, or it stands a good chance of being ruined by changing then I'd caution against it.

John in Covina

 

[tonyb]

The FedEx man arrived today bearing a box holding my two new acquisitions. The first is an apparently NOS Stratoliner (yes, it's the unbashed one that was on eBay a coupla-three weeks ago, which I purchased at a price that I wouldn't normally have paid, but my wife, God bless her, knew I wanted it so she set a maximum bid that turned out to be sniper proof). I'm tempted to leave it in the box for a few years, keeping it as is and taking it out every now and then just to marvel at it. It's as old as I am, maybe, and perhaps even older, and it's as good as the day it rolled out John B.'s door.
The other one is the gray Open Road with the cattleman's bash. It's in nice enough shape, but it isn't as nice in person as it was in the photos. It had a bit of soiling here and there and reddish stains on the ribbon. And I knew before I bid on it that at size 7 1/8 it was likely to be too small, but it was even tighter than I feared it might be. And it turns out that the cattleman's bash just isn't right for me, at least not on this lid. So I dunked that babe in naptha and left it to soak for a couple of hours. I let it dry on a stretcher cranked up pretty darned tight and pushed out the side dents, leaving just the center bash.
Good news is that the hat--sweatband, felt and all--stretched just fine. It fits my somewhere between 7 1/4 and 7 3/8 rack quite comfortably. The body soiling washed out (the naptha had a milky tinge to it afterwards). It looks great with just the center bash. And a ruler verifies that the brim, which appeared to be just a touch wider than your average Open Road's, actually is. My other ORs (one truly vintage, one less so) have brims that just touch the 2 3/4 inch mark. This "new" one reaches 2 7/8, and perhaps a whisker more.
The bad news: The reddish stains on the ribbon are barely diminished, if at all, by their battle with the naptha. They're hardly noticeable from a couple of feet away, but I know they're there, and it bugs me. I'll keep working on getting rid of them. And evidence of the old side dents is still there, but that's to be expected. A hat doesn't give up its creases easily, especially creases that have been there for several decades. I'm gradually, gradually working on steaming and massaging them away for good.
The verdict: I'm happy as a pig in poop with the Stratoliner. I count it among my most-prized possessions. As to the Open Road--well, it's only an Open Road, as common as hats come. I paid a reasonable price for it, and I can't say that the seller misrepresented it in any way, although I suppose that s/he might have made those ribbon stains a bit more explicit in the photos. I'm sure I'll get plenty of use out of it, provided I don't croak any time soon.

 

[Snrbfshn]

Link to hat?

How about giving us the link to the Strat auction and pix of the hat?

 

[riccardo]

Hi to all,
the Open Road I won on e.bay is my first "true american hat" I'm very proud of it.
I often wear it , with suits or in a more casual dress, it work very good and look great on me. Here it isn't an usual hat,you know, someone called me "sceriffo" (sheriff) but that isn't a problem for me!
I would like to get another, I'm looking for it on e.bay in silver belly.
Take care and good luck with yours Open Road.
Riccardo.

 

[tonyb]

I'm kind of a techno-idiot, Snrbfshn. How do I post the link? This morning I did the "leave feedback" thing on eBay and then hit "remove." Can I still get to the link?
I do, however, have a digital camera, and I even figured out how to transfer pictures to my Mac. (Like, plug in the camera to a USB port, wait for the iPhoto program to appear and hit "transfer" or "import" or "download" or something like that. I didn't even have to find the neighbor kid to show me how to do it.) But I don't know how to post them on this site. You've done it several times that I've seen, so I figure you're the guy to ask.

 

[DanielJones]

Joseph: Nice looking Open Road. I think that the memory wrinlkes will fade with time. They have on hats that I have reshaped in the past. Looks great the way you have it now. Very Jeff Bridges in Seabiscuit.

Cheers!

Dan

 

[tonyb]

Joseph, thanks for the tip on removing old side-dent wrinkles. I followed your example, but instead of a vinegar jug I used the oval-shaped tequila bottle the neighbors left behind after our drunken debauchery of the previous evening. (No motor vehicles were involved, so don't sic the mad mothers on me.) I'm reminded of the advice I received from a pro when attempting my own body-and-fender work. If you want straight, smooth panels, he said, you have to work over a wide area. Once you've made initial corrections to that dent or rusted-out sheet metal, to make the repair disappear you gotta go wider.
The tequila bottle is quite the tool, for a do-it-yourselfer, anyway. The neck makes a good handle and the flat-ish sides allowed me to work over a broader swath. Evidence of the old dents is still there, if you take a real closeup look. But they're getting fainter and fainter with each hit of steam and pass of the bottle (working the bottle from the inside of the crown, of course). This OR, about which I was kind of ambivalent when I took it out of the box a couple of days ago, is becoming one of my favorite lids. This wouldn't have happened without the benefit of y'all's experience. So thanks, Joseph, and everyone else.

 

[riccardo]

Question about wind string.

Hi to all,
I've seen a lot of pics about Open Road (a lot of them on e.bay) showing the Open Road Stetson without the wind string.
I've one of this hat with the wind.
When did Stetson stopped to made the Open Road hat with the wind string?

Thanks to all.
Riccardo.

 

[tonyb]

Good question, Riccardo. I've been wondering the same thing myself. I now own two vintage ORs, and both have wind strings. My newer one (purchased, oh, 10 or 12 years ago) does not. And the ORs bought new 20 or more years ago, which I mentioned earlier in this thread, also came without wind strings. Beyond that, I can't tell you much. I don't know how old my vintage ORs are, but I'm guessing they're at least 40 years old, if not older. I look forward to learning more, though, such as: did brim width change over the years? Or is my most-recent vintage acquisition's slightly wider brim just an anomaly? That extra eighth-of-an-inch-plus-an-almost-immeasurable-amount-more makes a noticeable difference in the hat's overall effect. It's a more "western" looking lid, and I prefer it over the others, even though I'm not generally one to wear western hats.