Mulceber
Practically Family
- Messages
- 759
- Location
- Ann Arbor, Michigan
Care to give us a display of your week's worth of Optimo's? I'd love to see a compilation. -M
Well, that's not quite true. I paid a good deal more than $150 each for the two hats I bought from him, but then the two hats I bought from him were new, unblemished, unworn (as far as I can see), recent-model Optimos in pretty desirable colors. . . oxblood, and a dark tan with a grey ribbon.
The ones that went for $150 were, I think, black. He had at least three black hats, and black hats, especially homburgs, are not greatly sought-after items, even if they are Optimos in a rare size. There were zero bids, I think, on a couple of them, at least for most of the listing.
So I guess that's why. Also, Optimo's new prices are a tad unrealistic in the first place, in my humble opinion. Not that they aren't great hats. . . .they are. But they aren't, cannot be, literally twice as good as Art Fawcett's or Gary White's. They're just marketed very well indeed. And good for Graham. I applaud him.
Art typically charges right around $300 for his hats. Both of those companies are charging around $300 for their rabbit/beaver blend, which is probably the closest to what Optimo sells. Thus, Gary White and Dave Brown both charge about the same as Art for a hat that is similar to Optimo in terms of the materials used. I've never handled a Gary White hat, but I have seen a couple of Dave Brown's works before, and they're pretty good stuff. Perhaps not quite as nice as the hats produced at Optimo, but similar. -M
are not economy blends but a custom blend and dying for them.
Optimo and Art do not charge $58.50 for a welt edge
or say "X" price and up.
Each hatter has to come up with a working business model and scale and I don't think any of them are getting rich quick.
... That's not to say that Graham's using the extra money to finance a Ferrari - more likely, I imagine he's using what extra money he makes to expand his business, explore different custom felts and promote Optimo...
Also, Graham does not advertise in the regular sense that we are used to, in such as buying ad space & renting bilboards.
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