Pre 1940s Stetson Westerns

[alanfgag]

... I am certainly NOT a hat expert, lol, but I have been handling vintage clothing for over ten years and I think the ribbon may possibly be as old as the hat. Naturally, that doesn't mean it was original to the hat. As Alan says, it could have been added at any time. Or maybe it was a custom choice by the original buyer...?

And a bound edge "Raw Edge" is quite the oxymoron!

These old hats lived through a period of time when hat shops were plentiful and hats were cleaned and renovated routinely. Here is a Stetson western I believe to be from a similar era that has been renovated with new parts. Which parts are newer, whether they were done at the same time can only be guessed. The sweatband shows an imprint from a process trademarked before 1940. It is also only a guess that the hat body and liner were born together.

Here is another of those Boss Raw Edge Stetsons with a decorative brim treatment. It is fifteen to twenty years later than yours.

 

[vintage.vendeuse]

These old hats lived through a period of time when hat shops were plentiful and hats were cleaned and renovated routinely. Here is a Stetson western I believe to be from a similar era that has been renovated with new parts. Which parts are newer, whether they were done at the same time can only be guessed. The sweatband shows an imprint from a process trademarked before 1940. It is also only a guess that the hat body and liner were born together.

Here is another of those Boss Raw Edge Stetsons with brim treatment. It is fifteen to twenty years later than yours.

Gorgeous, thanks for your expertise Alan, and everyone else, too!

 

[vintage.vendeuse]

The person who owns that page is a three time former member here(he got the boot 3X). While he has a great hat collection, I don't give him a lot credit for his hat dating knowledge. The hat he shows as a 1900-1920 hat has a 1224 Chestnut St. stamp making it post 1912.

But if you read it on the internet, it's true!

 

[frussell]

No surprise to my family, Alan. The Jewish branch of my family has been well documented in books with great titles like "Pioneer Jews!" They had trading posts in New Mexico and ended up as tribal governors of the Acoma Pueblo. To Donna - great find, and I also remember Marvin Zindler. He had the dubious distinction of shutting down a quiet little business that was about as secret as Marvin was classy. Great piece of Houston history you have there. Marvin was iconic. In his own way. Bet there's video of him on YouTube. Frank

(QUOTE=alanfgag;1766731]What a great first post, Donna - welcome!

Crown height is the measurement from the brim break (where the brim meets the crown) to the top of the open crown.

Jewish immigrants brought their mercantile (and tailoring) crafts with them and opened clothing stores all over the United States. Frequently when you search a store name on an old hat you will come up with a section from a book or article on the Jewish history of the region. It can come as a surprise to some that there were Jewish settlers in the south and west. It surprises me why it is so hard to find a good bagel outside of Brooklyn.[/QUOTE]

 

[vintage.vendeuse]

To Donna - great find, and I also remember Marvin Zindler. He had the dubious distinction of shutting down a quiet little business that was about as secret as Marvin was classy. Great piece of Houston history you have there. Marvin was iconic. In his own way. Bet there's video of him on YouTube. Frank

Thanks

 

[vintage.vendeuse]

I'm always curious about the pieces that pass through my hands. In researching further into Stetson Boss Raw Edge hats, I'm now understanding the the Boss Raw Edge name is a quality designation and it came in several different shapes. How can I determine the shape of the hat?

 

[fedoracentric]

As far as I can tell, determining a "shape" and assuming it gives you a way to categorize a hat is a pretty futile effort. The problem is a model name was often used for a great variety of styles. The Knox Tom & Jerry and Game Bird models, for instance, came in all sorts of brim sizes, crown heights, ribbons and brim treatments. The Stetson Playboy moved from mid sized ribbon to larger ribbon and from wider to shorter brims, some raw edged and others with decorative stitching and back again. The Stetson Eagle also had different looks. In the 50s it was a wide brimmed affair but by the early 60s it was a stingy. So, only in a very few cases did a model name keep anything near a particular style (Stratoliner and Open Roads are kinda sorta similar from one era to the next, for instance).

And that isn't even to mention that customers often ordered a model then had the hat guy alter it to his tastes--something that isn't always easy to tell.

I hope some of the more knowledgeable guys will chime in, here, but I think you may be assuming too much when it comes to styles, models, shapes or versions of fedoras and western hats. Fashion changed each season so hats changed with it and companies didn't care much whether they were being consistent with models from one season to the next. Hats aren't like other collectibles where a model name or general type can be used to comfortably categorize them.

I mean, you can categorize fountain pens, safety razors, comic books, baseball cards-and a million other collectibles-all pretty well in nice, neat categories that are fairly consistent over the years.

Hats, not so much.

 

[alanfgag]

The Miller-Stockman catalog thread features a wealth of scanned pages (thanks to Carouselvic) and model names for western hats. I have a good number of pre-1940 Stetson western hats. I don't recall one having a model name imprinted or referenced anywhere on the hat (with the possible exception of a pencil scrawled word on the manufacturing tag, which might be a model name or an employee in the finishing room - I can never decipher them).

Clear Nutria, Real Nutria, 5X Beaver Quality, No. 1 Quality, 1X Nutria Quality... these are marks that are associated with felt quality and price. Boss Raw Edge, Tailored Edge, etc. describe a finishing feature of the hat and I believe can be found on hats of varying felt composition and price.

At least I think this is so.

 

[fedoracentric]

Alan has it right, I think. It seems to me that Stetson and other hat makers of the day(1880s to 1910s) merely picked names for their hats for catalogs, but the hat itself rarely had any model names imprinted on them and model names were reused in later years for different styled hats, anyway. Seems to me that Stetson didn't start stamping model names until "The Avenue" name cam out (what is that like late teens and the 20s?) and the hats like Strat, Bantam, Whippet, and the like hit in the 30s and 40s made it more common to have formal model names.

I guess what I am saying is that early model names are sort of hard to pin down and often kind of meaningless for collecting's sake, especially for Stetson.

The quality designations are about all you can use to categorize Stetsons but even that only gives you an idea what the felt (or straw) is supposed to be, not any styles, models or brim and crown treatments are.

One other thing to note... Stetson's most famous western hat in the 1800s was the "Boss of the Plaines." Correct me if I'm wrong all you guys out there, but Stetson never stamped that name into any of its hats in that era. (At least I sure never saw one. Is there one?)

 

[alanfgag]

It seems to me that Stetson and other hat makers of the day(1880s to 1910s) merely picked names for their hats for catalogs, but the hat itself rarely had any model names imprinted on them and model names were reused in later years for different styled hats, anyway. Seems to me that Stetson didn't start stamping model names until "The Avenue" name cam out (what is that like late teens and the 20s?) and the hats like Strat, Bantam, Whippet, and the like hit in the 30s and 40s made it more common to have formal model names.

The comments I made were directed towards pre-1940s Stetson westerns. They do not hold up for Stetson dress hats. We have many examples of model names imprinted on the sweatbands of early hats - the new Sweet Sweats thread shows some of them. Clearly there were many styles of western hats sold - whether the model names that appear in the Miller-Stockman were originated by Stetson or the retailer, I do not know. I assume they were helpful for inventory and marketing. I've not seen these names imprinted on the inside of a hat, but perhaps others have.

 

[vintage.vendeuse]

This is the 1905 article that piqued my interest:
http://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth169572/m1/1/

 

[fedoracentric]

Alan, I think I noted that model names started on Stetson dress hats by the teens and twenties. Do we have examples previous? I'd love to see some if so.

vintage.vendeuse: Seems to me that another problem we'd have these days is that "shapes" can get beaten out of hats over almost 100 years of time! But with your advertisement from 1905, I see what you mean by "shapes."

It would be difficult for us to figure out the "shapes" categories by this late time especially since in those days photographs were not much used in advertising, most featured artist renditions instead of real-life photos. So, can we be sure how one artist drew a "Laloo" shape and another did? Good question that is hard to answer.

I have never seen on this site any idea that we could create any comprehensive Stetson "shape" guide. And, as Alan pointed out, some of those hat names might have been made up by the retailers, not Stetson itself.

I guess I am saying that it would take a ton more research on the "shapes" ideas and none of us here have done that as far as I have ever seen. Plus the "shape" idea for selling Stetsons didn't seem to last long into the 1900s. I don't recall seeing any Stetson ads touting "shapes" after the ad you gave us.

About the only "shape" I remember with certainty is the Boss Of The Plaines style hat. Maybe that is what Stetson was trying to capitalize on with the 1905 ad? Since BOTP hat was so famous for the style, maybe Stetson thought it could replicate that with other "shape" styles?

Seems the idea didn't take well, though, as the stamped model names started hitting and the Quality designations became even more a focus of ads.

These are suppositions, of course. What do you think Alan?

 

[alanfgag]

That's a very interesting advertisement and one that I have not seen posted before. I'm not sure that it tells a complete story (even in 1905, advertisements probably did not) as there were Boss Raw Edge hats in clear nutria, real nutria, unmarked fur quality, etc. But it's great piece of the puzzle nonetheless. Thanks for sharing it!

 

[fedoracentric]

Come on you FedroaLounge experts, I thought I did remember seeing that ad here before. Gives us a link to the page you mavens of the marvelous.

 

[alanfgag]

Good memory, it was posted previously by Buler in the Nothing But Stetson Ads thread.

 

[Joshbru3]

That's a very interesting advertisement and one that I have not seen posted before. I'm not sure that it tells a complete story (even in 1905, advertisements probably did not) as there were Boss Raw Edge hats in clear nutria, real nutria, unmarked fur quality, etc. But it's great piece of the puzzle nonetheless. Thanks for sharing it!

The Columbia, Dakota, and Big four were VERY popular western styles but were not only produced by Stetson. That is why I would call them styles and not Model names. If they were "model names" then only Stetson would be able to use them because they would have probably trademarked them. I have early ads where numerous hat companies produced the "Big four," "Columbia," Dakota," etc. I have also seem blocks and flanges labeled with those names. I wouldn't doubt it Stetson pioneered those styles, but other manufactures copied them and used those names in their descriptions of identical type hats.

 

[splintercellsz]

 

[Joao Encarnado]

Nice one Justin

 

[alanfgag]

+1

 

[splintercellsz]

1920s

The size tag is upside down.

Lot 6409