The Stetson Rosetta Stones?

[barrowjh]

A friend told me about an antique store on the Newport hwy between Sevierville and Newport, TN, right across from an intersection with Fox Cemetary rd. He said the place had at least a dozen or so Stetson hat boxes, and the proprietor said there were hats in them. So I drove through the foothills (trees in fall color now) for an hour to find this place. I put these in this thread because this story confirms that these were shipping containers of multiple hats:




All 3 pics are just different angles on the same one cluster of boxes. They told me all of the boxes were empty except for the cardboard 'hat forms' that helped segregate and suspend multiple hats within the boxes. They had bought out a dry goods store years ago and there were 50 of these empty boxes in the attic of the place; this is all that is left and they are selling them off at $20 each. The dry goods store would take the hats out of the boxes and then stored the empties in the attic. I left without buying one, got too many boxes already, and those tall boxes are difficult to deal with anyway. If anyone is interested, you can find this place and buy yourself one of these.

 

[hatophile]

Just think, what if the hats were still in there?

Ahhh then again they'd probably be moth eaten.

 

[barrowjh]

Yes, they would have been moth (or silvefish) food. The friend that told me about this is retired and I think he heard the proprietor wrong. It was certainly interesting to see so many of them in one spot.