New to Hats , Help IDing fur content

[jeffconnors]

Hello Everyone
My first post, I Have been wearing a fedora for sometime now , bought my first one at the bay(not quality, 100% wool). I have now graduated into quality hats and browse ebay quite often to look for a great quality hats to buy.)iv gotten a little carried away and have bought 4 hats and the past month(a moth eaten Keith XXXX beaver hat,a setson homburg, champ homburg and a mallory "Cravenette Processed Sheds Showers" whatever that means,will post pics when they get to me) I notice quite often people listing hats on ebay are not too sure what the hats they are listing are made of, and quite often the materiel is listed as "felt". I have no real interested in felt/wool hats as I live in Atlantic Canada and the weather here is wet and unpredictable. Are there any hard and fast rules to let one know weather or not "felt" has fur? If its not written on the band, how do you know?(Dobbs 20 being an example)Are there any brands, makes ,or models that are always fur/felt? Are hats crafted before 1960 always fur/felt blends?
Example, I got this hat..
(http://cgi.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=360213348656&ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT)
I bid low and won, who knew?? I know nothing about it ,when its from, the add says felt ..but maybe not???

 

[avedwards]

Mallory is a brand which is no longer around today. Therefore, one can assume that any hat made by it is vintage. I realise this is a generalisation but vintage hats are more often than not fur felt. Therefore, your hat looks like it is fur felt.

Also, while it is difficult to tell from pictures, one can sort of tell how good the quality of the hat looks to be. A nice sweatband, liner and smooth felt suggests fur felt. A rougher felt with no liner and a cotton sweatband is more likely to be wool felt, though there are unlined fur felt hats which are simply unlined to make them cooler for warm weather.

Modern hats will usually say whether they are wool or fur, and if not they will give some indication (for example a model name which can be searched).

 

[gtdean48]

The Dobbs 20 was a model made to sell for $20 which in its time was a high price for a hat. A hat commanding that price is definitely fur felt & most likely has beaver fur at least in the blend. Hats before the 60s that have lasted well enough to be serviceable almost have to be fur felt. There probably are some wool ones still around but odds & elements are against them. Do some reading about Mallory purchase by Stetson & there are lots of threads about no industry standard of the X's rating or even figuring out what it means or meant at Stetson!
Lots of hats listed on ebay say wool & they are clearly fur felt. Sellers just don't know any better. HTH & Welcome!

 

[barrowjh]

Presume Fur Unless Marked Wool

I think you can presume fur felt unless it is marked otherwise. Eventually, the felt composition became an issue and just about every hat is marked with XXX's or coney or imported fur or beaver blend. I'm not sure when this shift occurred, but I suspect it was in the 50's. Prior to that I think the wool felt was an anomoly - as it was a red herring for cheapskate. Wool is a much cheaper substitute, generally thicker and heavier to attain adequate strength for hatting. So, prior to the time when felt content was routinely stated on the sweat band, I think that the manufacturers clearly marked only the wool hats to insure they could not be accused of trying to 'fool' customers.

Stage productions might have been the primary user of wool felt hats, as the substitution was not detectable by the audience, and no actor would want to steal them, so they were a safe bet for costume inventory.

If you ever get the chance to feel wool felt hats vs fur felt, I doubt you will ever forget the difference. A customer would have been deeply embarrassed and then terminally angry at the brand to visit a haberdasher, express interest in a particular hat, and then find it was wool - might never say anything nice about that brand again. So, the haberdasher probably had a way of making some sort of visual break between the 'real' hats and any wool fedoras to prevent customers from embarrassing themselves.

I will pm Philip K Nelson - he might be able to add some genuine memory to improve our guessing!

I should add that in my ebay experiences many sellers will state 'wool felt' when it is in fact fur felt. If the hat otherwise looks good, ask the seller why they stated wool - are there any markings which state that it is wool? Often the seller simply presumed it is wool.

 

[barrowjh]

Example

I know we are not supposed to post about auctions in progress, but until it is removed by the moderators, here is an example of a seller stating that a hat is wool felt - but I would bet everything in my wallet that it is NOT wool - its a vintage Stetson and if it is wool, it would be the first wool thin-ribbon Stetson I have ever seen!

I have plenty of thin ribbons and am not interested in this one, certainly not willing to hurdle the seller's starting price of $45.00. I post it here only as an example of a seller that is (likely) mis-stating the felt composition:

auction# 150397002361

http://cgi.ebay.com/MENS-STETSON-GR...emQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item23045c2279

If the hat looks good to you, your size (7 1/8th) and if you were willing to pay more than $45 presuming it is fur felt, then ask the seller why they stated wool - is the hat actually marked as wool on the sweatband or in the crown?

 

[jeffconnors]

Thanks for the help guys! Much appreciated!

 

[RBH]

My Mallory The Dallas is one of the best felts I own. [as to the way it feels]
The hat is just not in the best shape, but wears good none the less.

 

[RBH]

Bump