The BORSALINO BROTHERHOOD

[M Hatman]

History has it's warts.

You bet it does.......just like the people that create it......nothing is perfect!
M

 

[steur]

This thread is sinking below its proper place. So here is another contribution. This is the hat Daniele posted in the classifieds recently and did not get any takers. Despite my reservations concerning brim width it was the colourr and shape that won me over. Quite rightly so, because it is a gem of a hat. There is no lable inside the hat so it's all guesswork from here (educated I hope, but guesswork nonetheless). Borsalino fedora in blue (I decided to call it petrol because it looks similar in colour to a hat Rodolfo (Chamuco) posted this week in that colour). Bound brim at 5cm and crown 10cm at the pinch. I believe this model to be the bocciasti because it looks so similar to one I have in Ghiaccio colour. The size label says 6, but it most certainly is not a 6, but a 5 (it fits me perfectly as borsalino 5 sized hats do). It did have a oilskin/onionskin covering of the crown patch in the liner once, but that is gone. Daniele believes it to be pre-WWII.

Here it is compared to the borsalino Bocciasti in Ghiaccio colour.

 

[deadlyhandsome]

I just picked up this HUGE green Borsalino on eBay. I’ll be listing no it here on our classifieds if anyone is interested. Size 8! (64). Appears to be unworn but the ribbon is a little wonky:

More in the What Hat Are You Waiting For thread. Should be in the classifieds in a week or so.







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[M Hatman]

I just picked up this HUGE green Borsalino on eBay. I’ll be listing no it here on our classifieds if anyone is interested. Size 8! (64). Appears to be unworn but the ribbon is a little wonky:

More in the What Hat Are You Waiting For thread. Should be in the classifieds in a week or so.







Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Holy heck........and a size 8.....wow.....even with me a size 7 1/2....I could probably make TWO hats out of it and have enough felt left over for a water bucket!
M
Bet they had a whole TEAM of hatters working on that one....

 

[steur]

I just picked up this HUGE green Borsalino on eBay. I’ll be listing no it here on our classifieds if anyone is interested. Size 8! (64). Appears to be unworn but the ribbon is a little wonky:

More in the What Hat Are You Waiting For thread. Should be in the classifieds in a week or so.







Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I could swim in that thing. Whole families of rabbits would have gone into making it. Quite the find.

 

[Redfokker]

I just picked up this HUGE green Borsalino on eBay. I’ll be listing no it here on our classifieds if anyone is interested. Size 8! (64). Appears to be unworn but the ribbon is a little wonky:

More in the What Hat Are You Waiting For thread. Should be in the classifieds in a week or so.







Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I have a bowling ball somewhere in the closet that this should fit! Wow. Beautiful hat though.

 

[RJR]

I have a bowling ball somewhere in the closet that this should fit! Wow. Beautiful hat though.

 

[deadlyhandsome]

Not sure what eBay delivered today. This not the hat I was expecting. The felt is dark green velour and the overwelt brim is just over three (3) inches wide. The crown measures 5.75 inches or maybe just a little over. The hat shows no signs of use, but it smells like it’s been in storage for a long time. The sweat is soft, thick, and very supple. The ribbon is a little wonky like another hat was stored on top of it. The crown has a substantial amount of taper and a great hand. A factory Borsalino hang tag is still attached, but here isn’t a size tag at the back of the sweat. The strange part is that there is a standard foil sticker on the sweat listing the size as 64 cm or 8 US; however it fits me. I don’t mean it sort of fits my 7 5/8 long oval head, I mean it fits me perfectly. There is no way this is a size 8. Now I don’t know what to do with it. It’s a soft floppy velour hat with some odd proportions. I’m thinking about reblocking it with my #52 block and just wearing it. Any ideas on what model it is? I’m worried that I won’t be able to sale it due to the uncertain sizing issues. What think ye?

I’m also putting this in Ask a Question Get an Answer thread.

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[mayserwegener]

Did you check behind the sweatband? Is there a paper label at the rear? Also spacers?

 

[deadlyhandsome]

Did you check behind the sweatband? Is there a paper label at the rear? Also spacers?

I turned the the sweat inside out; nothing.

 

[michael78]

Hello Chaps, i just recently acquired this Borsalino at a vintage market for £23, its my first Borso so I"m not to familiar with the brand, the seller said its from the 50s!?.
The hat itself is very pliable and light weight for spring/summer i presume. The sweatband and the liner has been replaced i think ( to clean ) but the shell is Older.
The brim is shorter at the back 2 1/8" while the front and side are 2 1/4", is this common on Borso?. There are also some names on inner labels.
Would appreciate any thoughts on this.
Cheer
Miks

Ooooop forgot some pics

 

[mayserwegener]

I turned the the sweat inside out; nothing.

It's recent so maybe Besdor (Steven) might have some idea about it.

 

[michael78]

Cheers Bud

 

[steur]

Hello Chaps, i just recently acquired this Borsalino at a vintage market for £23, its my first Borso so I"m not to familiar with the brand, the seller said its from the 50s!?.
The hat itself is very pliable and light weight for spring/summer i presume. The sweatband and the liner has been replaced i think ( to clean ) but the shell is Older.
The brim is shorter at the back 2 1/8" while the front and side are 2 1/4", is this common on Borso?. There are also some names on inner labels.
Would appreciate any thoughts on this.
Cheer
Miks

Ooooop forgot some pics View attachment 108519 View attachment 108521 View attachment 108522 View attachment 108523 View attachment 108524 View attachment 108525

Gorgeous looking Borsalino and for a steal too. It is most likely from the mid to late fifties (but could be early sixties as well). Doesn't look like the liner or sweatband were replaced to my eye. The first name on the label (averla) is the colour of the felt, the second one (c. ossido) is the colour of the ribbon (c stands for cinta) and the last one (eneospo?) is the name of the model. Don't bother looking these names up, because borsalino is notorious for using obscure or meaningless names for these properties. The different measurement of the brim are not uncommon. I'd take that for 23 quid any day. Congrats (but you'll find you can't go back to lesser hats after this, sorry).

 

[michael78]

Cheers Bud, your a star!... info extremely helpful. I have seen other hats from the 30s/40s with shorter measurements to the rear of the brim before, does it only occur on European hats? never seen it state side.

 

[steur]

Cheers Bud, your a star!... info extremely helpful. I have seen other hats from the 30s/40s with shorter measurements to the rear of the brim before, does it only occur on European hats? never seen it state side.

Glad to help. Can't really say how common it is. I had just one of my hats close at hand and it had different sizes of the brim in front and sides. One of the few American ones I have does not have a different size for front and sides, but I guess it depends on the model of the hat and not the country they were made for.

 

[Daniele Tanto]

The Borsalino factory in Verona

The Adige took away the most famous hats in the world

The recent news has been taken care of by the Borsalino bankruptcy. In 1880 a subsidiary of the Alessandria company was opened in Verona in the area of the Isolo, but the flood of 1882 put the production of headgear on its knees.
On December 14 of the year just ended, the court of Alessandria could have put an end to the story of Borsalino SpA, the company known worldwide for the hats, with a ruling that has made much talk: the bankruptcy of the company, presumably connected to the judicial affair of Marco Marenco.
Founded in Alessandria by Giuseppe Borsalino in 1857, the hat factory also had a Veronese parenthesis because a branch was born on the island in 1880.

In Verona the production of headgear was not a novelty: at the beginning of the 1500s there were the "berrettai" to which they took over slowly at the end of that century the "capelari", who came mainly from Milan and settled for the most part on the island. The Borsalino sull'Adige laboratory created products with simple processing and dedicated to export. Rising at the Seghe, roughly at the height of via Porta Organa, an island on the island surrounded by the Acqua Morta canal on one side and another small canal on the other: it was therefore on what was said 'Isolo above", which came from Giarina to what is now Via Carducci.

The Borsalino hat factory in Verona
We meet Umberto Calafà and Raffaello Vinco, passionate about Veronese history, in front of the Church of Santa Maria in Organo. Umberto's father remembered the hatters at the Seghe and handed down the memory to his son: "My father told me about when there were factories, sawmills and even hat factories. The Isolo was, at that time, a strategic area of the city, a place where the power of water could be exploited for many activities ".
"If we think of those years - says Vinco - here we must imagine a fluvial island, industrious, full of factories and houses, interspersed by the narrow vò that descended sull'Adige up to the water, the loads of timber that came from North and they were worked in the sawmills, the factories operated by hydraulic power, the coming and going of the washerwomen, the work of the butchers and tanners, the workshops of the inlayers ".
Considering that o siur Pipen - as Giuseppe Borsalino was called - was definitely a leading entrepreneur, projected on foreign trade from the beginning, not amazed that he thought of Genoa and Verona to expand his business. There
first it was a port city par excellence while the second, right on the island, housed the Venetian Customs from which the goods that went up the Adige to Northern Europe passed.
Thus began the decline of the Veronese Borsalino plant which will continue to Alessandria first, and then at Spinetta Marengo, where the company is still located. It is in 2013 that the Borsalino company crosses the history of Verona again when it becomes part of the BoD of the company Marco Moccia, who will try to revive the company. Among the actions
strategic decisions of the Verona administrator, however, there will also be the decision to close the historic sales point of Piazza Erbe in Verona. Where today is the brasserie of the bar Filippni many Veronese still remember what was a small corner from the taste of past: a shop for enthusiasts and lovers of the Italian hat.
After the Marenco crash, the company was auctioned and leased to a company of international investors, Haeres Equita srl, led by the Swiss Philippe Camperio. Under the guidance of Camperio la Borsalino, of which Haeres Equita srl bought the brand in July 2016, it began to work and even grow. The sentence of failure was, of course, a cold shower but not all is still lost: the Haeres has contested the sentence and the Swiss entrepreneur can now count on the company's rent,
which was awarded until June 2018.

 

[besdor]

I am happy that the truth is now coming out about what Camperio and Moccia were trying to do to the company. They were working together to devalueate the company in order to be able to control it onceagain at a fraction of its value. They were also preventing other potential buyers from trying to get the company.
Now in June we will see what happens. We hope tha tthere will finaly be a new owner who will care ebough to keep the factory going and restore it to the famous company that it once was.

 

[Daniele Tanto]

Steven, these are more accurate analysis on Borsalino. Mine is an historical memories linked to my town: Verona
The last news about Borsalino are more clear about the situation

A) The Guardia di Finanza seized the Borsalino trademark, with a provision requested by the Public Prosecutor of Alessandria and confirmed by the investigating judge. It is learned from environments close to the historic company, declared bankrupt at the end of 2017. The bankruptcy curators, Stefano Ambrosini and Paola Barisone, were the ones to take action for the seizure, authorized by the judge responsible for bankruptcy. The seizure reunites both the factory and the brand, which is the main value, in the hands of a single subject: bankruptcy.
The brand, known all over the world, had been sold by Mediocredito to the Haeres Equita di Camperio, which has rented the Borsalino. An operation, hardly criticized by the Court, and for this ended under the lens of the Prosecution, which a few weeks ago, on the basis of the report by the insolvency trustees, asked the judge for preliminary investigations to seize the mark.
The seizure marks a new turning point in the Borsalino affair. It turns out that all the subjects that have come forward for the purchase have influenced their interest in the fact that the editors are able to sell, together with the company, even the brand that had been separated for a while. It seems that these are subjects interested in making substantial investments and relaunching the brand even beyond the hat sector. The Haeres is still today debtor to Borsalino of relevant amounts.
«We immediately asked, as soon as possible, a meeting with the bankruptcy curators, in order to compare ourselves to know the details and what will happen in the immediate future. On Monday we will definitely talk with the workers. Right now, to say that we are simply angry does not lead to anything. " It is the hot commentary by Maria Iennaco (CGIL) and Elio Bricola (UIL) after the seizure of the brand.
From environments close to Haeres Equita, the company of the Italian-Swiss entrepreneur Philippe Camperio, owner of the brand and with the lease of the business branch, specify that the preventive seizure of the brand has the sole motivation that it is not passed on to third parties, something never wanted by the company. Haeres can continue to produce, promote and use it. Tomorrow, in fact, the new collection will be presented in the Milan showroom.


B) "Camperio has the brand, we the company; one thing without the other can not be. " The bankruptcy curators Stefano Ambrosini and Paola Barisone in December had been clear with the trade unionists during the first meeting in the plant after Borsalino's declaration of bankruptcy. On the other day, this "split" was recomposed: the Guardia di Finanza, executing an ordinance signed by the investigating magistrate Paolo Bargero at the request of the prosecutor Tiziano Masini, seized the Borsalino brand which is owned by the Italian-Swiss entrepreneur. What happens now? Nothing in terms of production: the Borsalino remains rented at the Haeres Equita of Philippe Camperio at least until June with the possibility of renewal of the contract and the mark, the measure says and the curators confirm it, can easily be used.



On the judicial level, on the other hand, the situation is much more complex. The seizure was decided "as a precautionary measure" so that the mark which obviously is the greatest value of the hat factory should not be dispersed, in order to prevent the current owner from selling it. Hypothesis supported by the general system of the sentence issued in December by the judges Caterina Santinello, Eleonora Bertolotto, Pier Luigi Mela, to whom the investigating judge Bargero refers explicitly. From there emerges the figure of a Camperio «corsaro», which in agreement with the Borsalino board (Marco Moccia, Saverio Canepa, Raffaele Grimaldi) would conduct a series of operations to seize the company by-passing the basic rules on the status of crisis, especially to avoid competing with other possible buyers.

Clear that failure leads to an auction, but of what? Without the trademark one could only sell a historical establishment as long as one wants, but like many others and therefore relatively palatable. Instead of bringing the two together, the situation is very different. And the editors have already received offers from at least a dozen suitors, including - they say - very important and solid groups, willing to invest massively to develop the brand.

On the opposite side, Camperio continues to ask: "Why do they have it with me? I came here from Switzerland to save the Borsalino, I spent time and money (not least the 17.5 million with which he paid the mark to Mediocredito, ed), I am committed to keeping employees and production on the territory, I presented a development plan of great prospects ". And the brand? "Of course I bought it: the judges had made it clear to the bank that it would end up in unsecured loans, in short, a third would have been paid. And since the leasing contract Mediocredito had solved it, at that point he could sell it to anyone. If Hermès came forward to say, then Borsalino risked leaving Alexandria. I bought the brand and, as a demonstration of my good faith, I included it in the request for an agreement, then rejected: if I wanted to make money, I sold it and it ended there ».
Opposite visions also on giving and receiving: «Haeres owes millions to Borsalino» the curators say. "It's not true," Camperio replies.

If this were a game of poker you could say that the curators have secured a good hand to play with Camperio or someone else. The problem is the times. It is possible, but not yet decided, that the lawyers of Haeres (the Gop study in Milan) turn to the Court of Review to request the withdrawal of the seizure. However, on March 13, the Court of Appeal for the Court of Appeal for the Court of Appeals for the Court of First Instance is scheduled for failure: whatever the outcome, the losing party will address the Supreme Court a minute later. Not to mention the possibility that a criminal procedure is joined to the civil procedure, which would postpone the final verdict (and any auction) of years and years.

The question is: can Borsalino wait all this time without exploiting its potential on international markets, risking to lose more and more turnover and end up in an irreversible crisis? Because it must be emphasized that so far the hat factory for all these judicial events has suffered little. Pulling it for long does not suit anyone, the alternative is to see to find an agreement that will satisfy everyone. The curators say that Camperio has not knocked on their door, he replies that he had asked for a meeting three weeks ago but did not receive an answer. Perhaps the seizure will open the way for dialogue. It would be the bright side, in an affair so far not very understandable by the city and the many fans of Borsalino.

C) There are seven people registered in the register of suspects by the prosecutor Tiziano Masini representing the prosecution in the civil proceedings on the Borsalino bankruptcy that at this point inevitably slips into the penalty. The hypotheses of crime are those of preferential bankruptcy and improper bankruptcy: they concern the sale of the brand by Mediocredito to the Italian-Swiss entrepreneur Philippe Camperio, who manages the hat factory for rent. Investigated, besides him, three bank officials who followed the operation and the three members of the company's board of directors: Marco Moccia, Saverio Canepa, Raffaele Grimaldi.

The investigation has led in recent days to the precautionary seizure, at the request of the prosecutor signed by the investigating magistrate Paolo Bargero, of the Borsalino brand. A measure based on the bankruptcy ruling against which an appeal was filed (appeal on March 13 in Turin) and where an agreement is envisaged for Camperio to take possession of the trademark which represents a fundamental asset without which it would be practically impossible for the curators failure to give the hat factory to others.

The brand had been sold to the banks ten years ago by the then owner Roberto Gallo, in exchange for fresh money and with the commitment to repurchase it in installments. Pending the complex Borsalino affair - with the request for two preventive agreements, one withdrawn and the other rejected - the installments were no longer paid for a certain period and Mediocredito had terminated the contract. Camperio was then introduced, buying it in cash for 17.5 million: "I did it - he says - to prevent it from falling into the hands of people not interested in keeping the Borsalino in Alessandria, while I had inserted it in the request for second agreed". Instead, judges argue that it should remain in bankruptcy and end up in unsecured loans, with a depreciation that would have cost the bank a good deal.

 

[steur]

I have very few green hats in my collection. It's just a difficult colour for me. This one I could not pass up. Borsalino in green (can't make out the name on the label properly for its Italian name). Lovely proportions and nice ribbon. Overwelt brim at 5,5cm and crown 10 cm at the pinch. The shop it came from still exists in The Hague. The felt is lovely on this one; not exactly a longhair but not standard. It does have corrugated cardboard in front which is unusual for European market Borsalinos.