SOme other vintage brands.

[John in Covina]

Occasionally, I see brands that I have not heard of in the auction area. Two vintage brands that I was wondering about are : Champ and the second brand, Wormser. Some of the hats look pretty nice but I was wondering about their quality. Are they High / Medium / low or run the gamat.

Sincerely,

 

[photobyalan]

Champ is considered a mid-quality brand by many. I own a Champ fedora. It's a really nice quality hat, certainly not top-of-the-line, but it has a lot of style. Would I buy another Champ? In a heartbeat!

 

[feltfan]

There are multiple discussions of both Champ and Wormser
(and many other brands) on this site. Lately I've seen a lot
of posts asking questions that have already been answered.
Cumbersome though it may be, I encourage everyone to try
the search feature.

That said, I don't own a Wormser but have a super light
Champ I like a lot. It is not a hat I wear in rain, but it's
one of my few summer weight felts.

You might also search the site for info on Stevens and
Mallory hats.

 

[jamespowers]

Champ was a cheaper brand but what they lacked in expensive finishing and materials they made up for in styling. As mentioned, their featherweights are great hats.

Champ and Adam hats battled it out for the low end market.

As you can see from the ad, a $7.50 hat in 1947 was about as cheap as you could get (the Adam ad is from 1959).
Wormser was a different story. They were a medium grade hat. Several that I have are just as good as any vintage Stetson or Mallory. They had different levels of quality though just as Adam and Champ did. I don't remember the top grade of Wormser but They were decent hats. I have a nearly white Wormser with a black ribbon. The brim is a little short but the quality is very good.
You will also find Lee hats out there:

They made cheap contract hats for JC Penney (Marathon) and such. Their own brand is best described as Midgrade.
The hats that were really considered at the top in the day were the Knox, Cavanagh and the Dobbs. Charles Knox positioned his hats as being the best money could buy. He had a knack for exploiting a market and slick advertising.

Dobbs was pretty good at doing the same thing:

I can't find a Cavanagh ad right now but they were nicely set up with quality prints of the day.
There are other brands out there and if you run across another you don't have much information about, ask about the brand. There are plenty here who would know about esoteric and regional brands.

Regards to all,

J

 

[Mr. Rover]

One tends to find ads for brandss like Knapp Felt and Mallory.
I really liked the ads for Knapp, although I've only ever seen one Knapp hat on an on-line vintage store.

 

[jamespowers]

One tends to find ads for brandss like Knapp Felt and Mallory.
I really liked the ads for Knapp, although I've only ever seen one Knapp hat on an on-line vintage store.

Knapp or Crofut and Knapp? Like this ad from 1938?:

I have several other at home but this is a pretty good example. I'll have to dig the others out later tonight.
Here is an old ad from Mallory:

Another name you don't hear of much is Schnoble:

Regards to all,

J