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Excellent, Ale!
Ale, Very cool!
Nice one Mike. It looks like my 1980's Alessandria from the liner. Has the diagonal seam in the liner, right?
I bought mine new in Ft Worth from Peter Bros in about 1987 or so. When we visited there for FedFest3, Joe Peters said he bought a bunch from a sales rep in the mid-80's. He actually still had a real small one in the cabinet. None of those had a shop name in them but looks like yours does.It does indeed.
+1Very cool, Jeff!
Must have been a Beaver fur shortage!
My new Falcon Park lord's hat. More pics in the Falcon Park Hattery thread.
My restored P. & C. Habig Wien Velour arrived from Optimo today. Rather than a black ribbon I had them put on a blue one. I have never encountered a pre 1940s P. & C. Habig solf felt so very rare. I think this one might actually be from around WWI. More details in the German - Austrian thread.
More thrift store luck. Today I found a beautiful 7 ¼ long oval grey fedora made for Eaton’s department store. It’s flawless and very comfortable. The fur felt is wonderfully soft and quite thick. No stains, no mothing…nothing! (Won’t mention the embarrassing low price.) 2 1/4" brim...just about my favourite size.
Made in Czecho Slovakia between the WW's,
Its a moderately lightweight felt despite the velour finish, which is quite spectacular. More to come...
This hat has a system for holding the leather sweatband that I’ve never seen before. The system was patented in Canada by Otto Blaine Carter in 1935. (Carter patented the same system in the U.S. in 1934.) Basically he used 5 very slim metal buttons fastened to the hat to which the reeded sweatband attached. Until I looked up the patent number stamped on the sweatband, I didn’t even notice the buttons! His idea was to make the sweatband easily replaceable by the hat owner.
Here's the patent notice:
And one of the five buttons:
In addition, I found the drawing that was attached to his patent application in 1935:
And an ad from April 1957 originally in the Ottawa Citizen:
And finally, the happy new owner (despite the grim visage) with the hat!
Obviously, Carter's system didn't really catch on but it's not a bad idea. Has anyone else ever encountered this sort of buttoned-in sweat?