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The BORSALINO BROTHERHOOD

The felt is noticeably thinner and more moldable than the other NOS Recent Borsalinos it was shipped with.

That's good to hear. Not sure about the sweat band. This logo and stitching seem a long way from the glory days.

1677200831988.png


Odd that you have snow and we were at 70-deg-F yesterday. Stay warm!
 
Messages
19,001
Location
Central California
That's good to hear. Not sure about the sweat band. This logo and stitching seem a long way from the glory days.

View attachment 492112

Odd that you have snow and we were at 70-deg-F yesterday. Stay warm!


The sweatband is my biggest disappointment. Not only is the printing low quality, it’s not nearly wide enough for my liking.
 
Messages
17,549
Location
Maryland
After all the fantastic additions to this list in the last days and weeks
I hardly dare to show a simple gray Homburg ;)

Maybe you remember the Borsalino stamp-dated Homburg from Max Eckard, Berlin,
which was too big for me at 7 punti (a salute to Daniele)? This one is its little brother
- at least so small that it fits me perfectly:

Borsalino "Gigiasgu" (never seen) in middle grey "Nizza"
for the German market: sold at Josef Hermann, München
felt matching brim binding + contrasting, frayed crown ribbon
size 6 Punti on the separate size stamp next to the label
brim 5,5 cm; ribbon 4,8 cm; crown 11,5 cm dent/14,5 cm open

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Matt, Great find! It's been a while for a Echter Borsalino and this one is a fantastic older example. Congrats!
 
Messages
18,588
Location
Nederland
After all the fantastic additions to this list in the last days and weeks
I hardly dare to show a simple gray Homburg ;)

Maybe you remember the Borsalino stamp-dated Homburg from Max Eckard, Berlin,
which was too big for me at 7 punti (a salute to Daniele)? This one is its little brother
- at least so small that it fits me perfectly:

Borsalino "Gigiasgu" (never seen) in middle grey "Nizza"
for the German market: sold at Josef Hermann, München
felt matching brim binding + contrasting, frayed crown ribbon
size 6 Punti on the separate size stamp next to the label
brim 5,5 cm; ribbon 4,8 cm; crown 11,5 cm dent/14,5 cm open

45162351wl.jpg

45162350oo.jpg

45162349ed.jpg

45162346tm.jpg

45162345nq.jpg

45162348ge.jpg

45162347yt.jpg

45162344me.jpg

45162342fk.jpg

45162343tp.jpg

45162341af.jpg
A nice early one, Matt. And always satisfying to find a new model.
 
Messages
18,588
Location
Nederland
Two exquisite examples, Alan. Now if you could just add a Lontra and a Martora you'd have the quadfecta.
A Borsalino Gorasgu, color Averla. 2 5/8 inch brim, 2 inch ribbon. Just received from Randall.
One of the coolest Borsalinos around. Wonderful hat, Mike.

Beautiful hat with the beautiful Colombo liner... often concealed behind a paper protector. Here is another, also velour, made for USA market with color bordered label and separate size tag. Marked in the front "visone" (mink).

View attachment 491709

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Breathtaking. Every time.

NOS recent production Borsalino in 7 ⅛ US or 57cm. The felt is noticeably thinner and more moldable than the other NOS Recent Borsalinos it was shipped with.

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The promised snow also caught up to us.
That is a strange looking sweatband. I started collecting with one of those thin felted modern Borsalinos. Nice enough hat (and still a good sweatband), but eventually it moved on.
 
Messages
18,588
Location
Nederland
Posted this in the hat books thread, but since it's all about Borsalino it should be here as well.

Borsalino
Guido Barberis (author)

Guido-Barberis-Borsalino.jpg



Hardcover 528 pages
iGrafismi Boccassi Editore 2007

For those interested in everything Borsalino, this is your book. It follows the history of the company in great detail from its founding in 1857 up until its relocation in 1983. The emphasis is not in the product itself, but on the compnay and the men who were in charge of it: Giuseppe Borsalino, his son Teresio Borsalino and finally their nephew Teresio Usuelli.
I have made a translation of this book (well, google did), because it is in Italian. It is a very interesting read and I will freely admit I have gained a considerable amount of admiration for Teresio Borsalino, who provided the rock solid basis for a company that likely has survived to this day because of that. Barberis is not a very accessible writer. He has a tendency to string sentences together with sidetracks and asides into a long and winding maze of words in which he himself sometimes gets lost. And it also seems he starts every other sentence with “In ogni caso..”, “In fatto...” or “Tuttavia..” The photo's and illustration help a good deal to alleviate that.
That being said, Barberis knows his subject very well and has spent some serious amount of time getting to know the company inside and out (if that is even possible, because much of its archives are still scattered). What emerges is a clear picture of what we already knew, namely that Borsalino is a company dedicated both to quality (to a fault) and domination of the hat market(s). A running thread which we also already knew from other books is the more or less constant battle between the workers and the company (not just Borsalino, but all of the manufacturers) about wages and working conditions. Another thread in the history of the company is the constant battles it faced dealing with trade restrictions, import tariffs and the like, which made business extremely difficult for them, relying on exports for half to two thirds of their trade.
The battle between the two Borsalinos gets a good deal of attention as well.
There is a vast amount of detail in this book on how the company and its people operated. It is kind of remarkable though that both this book and the “Omaggio al cappello – La Borsalino di Teresio Usuelli” both concentrate on the company and the family and not on the hats, so the riddle of the model names doesn't get solved (spoiler).
Perhaps the attitude of the company is best summed up by Teresio Usuelli in 1957 when he stated:
"at no cost, under any circumstances, despite any difficulty our predecessors, compatibly with the needs of the moment, have never accepted to lower the quality of the product. It goes without adding that this commitment remains valid for us too, almost as a moral commitment rather than as a commercial rule. In short, it is precisely because our predecessors have always known how to save the quality of the Borsalino hat that we are here today, a hundred years later, talking about it"

Highly recommended. The book is findable at decent prices.
If you're interested in the translation, just let me know in a PM.
 
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Steve1857

I'll Lock Up
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