Toppers Unite

[Rmccamey]

About as nice a "modern" topper as I have seen.

Here are a few pictures of the sweatband and the back seam. You are correct that this one is reeded. Don't feel like trying to turn the sweatband inside out as they can be brittle as you well know. Hope these pix help.
View attachment 653302 View attachment 653303 View attachment 653304

 

[TimmyV]

About as nice a "modern" topper as I have seen.

Thanks. I feel lucky to have it in my collection.

 

[Faux Brummell]

My grey Herbert Johnson top hat recently made its debut at Bergdorf Goodman for afternoon tea.
View attachment IMG_2220.jpeg

 

[CraigEster]

Here are a few pictures of the sweatband and the back seam. You are correct that this one is reeded. Don't feel like trying to turn the sweatband inside out as they can be brittle as you well know. Hope these pix help.
View attachment 653302 View attachment 653303 View attachment 653304

Thanks for the photos. The sweatband looks really well-seated and it's probably one of the comfiest top hats out there.
Could you slide the hatband up a bit to see if there's stitching going through the crown wall? If there is stitching, it'd be interesting to see if it's done by hand or by machine.
To safely slide the felt bands up and down, rotate with the lay of the silk and only go up a little per rotation. This won't mess up the silk too bad, and you slide down the same way. A wipe with a brush or velvet pad will touch up the hat after it's back into place.
These US brand silk hats from the 1930s were largely imported and rebranded, with Stetson only providing the liner. The cost of making these hats in the USA was too high, so they made the hats in interwar Germany, Austria, and the Netherlands. After the war, nearly all came from the Netherlands.

 

[Steve1857]

My grey Herbert Johnson top hat recently made its debut at Bergdorf Goodman for afternoon tea.
View attachment 653769

What a wonderfully dressed couple! Nothing faux about your look at all.

Herbert Johnson's Topper certainly looks in its right element.

 

[Steve1857]

Thanks for the photos. The sweatband looks really well-seated and it's probably one of the comfiest top hats out there.
Could you slide the hatband up a bit to see if there's stitching going through the crown wall? If there is stitching, it'd be interesting to see if it's done by hand or by machine.
To safely slide the felt bands up and down, rotate with the lay of the silk and only go up a little per rotation. This won't mess up the silk too bad, and you slide down the same way. A wipe with a brush or velvet pad will touch up the hat after it's back into place.
These US brand silk hats from the 1930s were largely imported and rebranded, with Stetson only providing the liner. The cost of making these hats in the USA was too high, so they made the hats in interwar Germany, Austria, and the Netherlands. After the war, nearly all came from the Netherlands.

Interesting information, Craig.

Do you have a source link?

 

[CraigEster]

Interesting information, Craig.

Do you have a source link?

I need to find the link, but the source was a US Senate hearing regarding tariffs on silk hats and the material used to make them in the early 20th century.

In that time, the US had an opposition to tariffs whenever they didn't help domestic industry. Industry representatives would go to Congress and testify on the impact of tariffs and whether they should be increased or abandoned. In regard to this, hat makers went to Congress and asked that the tariff on silk hatter's plush be lowered because it couldn't be made in the US and the tariff thus protected nothing. Congress agreed and lowered the import tax to the minimum at the time, meaning the tax on hat plush was lower than the tax on basic cloth like muslin, whereas other luxury silks were more expensive.

The inverse happened with the tax on finished hats. Initially, hat companies asked to increase the tax on silk hats because small makers were importing them from Central Europe and re-branding them, competing with the big US makers that domestically produced them. By the 1920s, this approach was abandoned and everyone was importing foreign hats.

The details are vague because the testimony that was recorded wasn't particularly detailed, but in essence all but the most expensive silk hats were made in Germany, Austria, and the Netherlands. After the Second World War, I believe all the silk hats were made in the Netherlands.

The only way to know for certain would be to pull the liner out and look at the maker's marks, and to be intimately familiar with the various marks from different countries. All the ones I've seen look barely intelligible so I don't know if this is possible.

Another issue facing silk hat production in the United States was the slowness of training new workers and disinterest from young hatters in the 1930s onward. In the end of the book The Top Hat, there's an article from I believe 1944 in which it is said that most of the American silk hatters were middle-aged or older, and all the young workers wanted to make felt hats.

I will look in my research for more details, there's a lot of Senate hearings to go through.

As for the hatband thing, that's just regular maintenance that I do. I've been developing my skills fixing silk hats.

 

[Steve1857]

I need to find the link, but the source was a US Senate hearing regarding tariffs on silk hats and the material used to make them in the early 20th century.

In that time, the US had an opposition to tariffs whenever they didn't help domestic industry. Industry representatives would go to Congress and testify on the impact of tariffs and whether they should be increased or abandoned. In regard to this, hat makers went to Congress and asked that the tariff on silk hatter's plush be lowered because it couldn't be made in the US and the tariff thus protected nothing. Congress agreed and lowered the import tax to the minimum at the time, meaning the tax on hat plush was lower than the tax on basic cloth like muslin, whereas other luxury silks were more expensive.

The inverse happened with the tax on finished hats. Initially, hat companies asked to increase the tax on silk hats because small makers were importing them from Central Europe and re-branding them, competing with the big US makers that domestically produced them. By the 1920s, this approach was abandoned and everyone was importing foreign hats.

The details are vague because the testimony that was recorded wasn't particularly detailed, but in essence all but the most expensive silk hats were made in Germany, Austria, and the Netherlands. After the Second World War, I believe all the silk hats were made in the Netherlands.

The only way to know for certain would be to pull the liner out and look at the maker's marks, and to be intimately familiar with the various marks from different countries. All the ones I've seen look barely intelligible so I don't know if this is possible.

Another issue facing silk hat production in the United States was the slowness of training new workers and disinterest from young hatters in the 1930s onward. In the end of the book The Top Hat, there's an article from I believe 1944 in which it is said that most of the American silk hatters were middle-aged or older, and all the young workers wanted to make felt hats.

I will look in my research for more details, there's a lot of Senate hearings to go through.

As for the hatband thing, that's just regular maintenance that I do. I've been developing my skills fixing silk hats.

Spoorenberg was most likely one of the main suppliers.

https://www.silktophats.eu/recollections.html

Here's a link to a YouTube video of the Spoorenberg Top Hat makers

 

[Bobby Marshall]

Any fellow big headed folk around these parts? Are top hats just for normal folks or can us freaks get in on these too?

 

[Trouser Bark]

I had no idea that top hats could be collapsed and that news takes me back a few decades to a college history class I enjoyed a lot. It was American History up to 1865 and the professor was a very old goat that told the class on day one that he'd be teaching history autobiographically.

He added color to history in a way that made lessons far more interesting than any textbook could ever be and one of the colorful stories he sited was from the Lincoln-Douglas presidential election debates. Seated in a chair toward the front of the audience was Mr. Lincoln and on the chair beside him rested his hat. As the audience grew larger Mr. Douglas' wife Adele squeezed along the aisle and sat immediately beside Mr. Lincoln... and directly on his hat.

Mr. Lincoln reportedly looked at her and said "I could have told you madam, it would not fit".

Now that I know they can be collapsed it makes more sense that he wouldn't have been a heck of a lot angrier than his rude remark would suggest.

 

[Steve1857]

I had no idea that top hats could be collapsed and that news takes me back a few decades to a college history class I enjoyed a lot. It was American History up to 1865 and the professor was a very old goat that told the class on day one that he'd be teaching history autobiographically.

He added color to history in a way that made lessons far more interesting than any textbook could ever be and one of the colorful stories he sited was from the Lincoln-Douglas presidential election debates. Seated in a chair toward the front of the audience was Mr. Lincoln and on the chair beside him rested his hat. As the audience grew larger Mr. Douglas' wife Adele squeezed along the aisle and sat immediately beside Mr. Lincoln... and directly on his hat.

Mr. Lincoln reportedly looked at her and said "I could have told you madam, it would not fit".

Now that I know they can be collapsed it makes more sense that he wouldn't have been a heck of a lot angrier than his rude remark would suggest.

I doubt very much that Lincoln's stove pipe Top Hat was a collapsible one.

It's still a fun anecdote, though

Here's a little more anecdotal info on this type of Top Hat:

https://historyonyourhead.com/the-gibus/

 

[mayserwegener]

I need to find the link, but the source was a US Senate hearing regarding tariffs on silk hats and the material used to make them in the early 20th century.

In that time, the US had an opposition to tariffs whenever they didn't help domestic industry. Industry representatives would go to Congress and testify on the impact of tariffs and whether they should be increased or abandoned. In regard to this, hat makers went to Congress and asked that the tariff on silk hatter's plush be lowered because it couldn't be made in the US and the tariff thus protected nothing. Congress agreed and lowered the import tax to the minimum at the time, meaning the tax on hat plush was lower than the tax on basic cloth like muslin, whereas other luxury silks were more expensive.

The inverse happened with the tax on finished hats. Initially, hat companies asked to increase the tax on silk hats because small makers were importing them from Central Europe and re-branding them, competing with the big US makers that domestically produced them. By the 1920s, this approach was abandoned and everyone was importing foreign hats.

The details are vague because the testimony that was recorded wasn't particularly detailed, but in essence all but the most expensive silk hats were made in Germany, Austria, and the Netherlands. After the Second World War, I believe all the silk hats were made in the Netherlands.

The only way to know for certain would be to pull the liner out and look at the maker's marks, and to be intimately familiar with the various marks from different countries. All the ones I've seen look barely intelligible so I don't know if this is possible.

Another issue facing silk hat production in the United States was the slowness of training new workers and disinterest from young hatters in the 1930s onward. In the end of the book The Top Hat, there's an article from I believe 1944 in which it is said that most of the American silk hatters were middle-aged or older, and all the young workers wanted to make felt hats.

I will look in my research for more details, there's a lot of Senate hearings to go through.

As for the hatband thing, that's just regular maintenance that I do. I've been developing my skills fixing silk hats.

There were Silk Top Hats made in Germany and Austria post WWII.

P. & C. Habig Wien were the last to make Silk Top Hats. They acquired the tools and stock from Spoorenberg in the early to mid 1970s. P. & C. Habig Wien made Silk Top Hats up to WWII. Here you can read about here on my website.

https://germanaustrianhats.invisionzone.com/topic/5-p-c-habig-hutfabrik/?do=findComment&comment=700

Here is an example of a post Spoorenberg circa 1980 P. & C. Habig Wien Silk Top Hat from my website.

https://germanaustrianhats.invisionzone.com/topic/5-p-c-habig-hutfabrik/?do=findComment&comment=1285

I believe A. Tremel of Herford, Germany made Silk Top Hats post WWII. You can see more here.

https://www.thefedoralounge.com/threads/looking-for-hat-information.16572/page-58#post-2520898

https://www.thefedoralounge.com/threads/looking-for-hat-information.16572/page-58#post-2521445

Here is some info from my website regarding Tariffs on Fur Felt Hats. I will see what I can find for Silk Top Hats.

https://germanaustrianhats.invision...iff-hearings-bill-hr-7456-fur-felt-hats-1922/

https://germanaustrianhats.invision...entatives-seventieth-congress-second-session/

https://germanaustrianhats.invision...lt-hats-tariff-readjustment-1929-us-congress/

 

[mayserwegener]

I doubt very much that Lincoln's stove pipe Top Hat was a collapsible one.

It's still a fun anecdote, though

Here's a little more anecdotal info on this type of Top Hat:

https://historyonyourhead.com/the-gibus/

Yes, it was not collapsible. Also not what we would consider a Silk Top Hat.

 

[Trouser Bark]

Ouch! Maybe then his remark was the height of rudeness for the time.

 

[mayserwegener]

Ouch! Maybe then his remark was the height of rudeness for the time.

This is the Silk Top Hat Lincoln wore the night of assignation. As you can see it is not collapsible and has a flatter brim.

Smithsonian dusts off Lincoln artifacts for film | Arkansas Democrat Gazette

WASHINGTON -- The curators wore lavender surgical gloves as they arranged Abraham Lincoln's stovepipe hat under the camera lights at the National Museum of American History in Washington.

www.arkansasonline.com

 

[Trouser Bark]

This is the Silk Top Hat Lincoln wore the night of assignation. As you can see it is not collapsible and has a flatter brim.

Very interesting. I wonder how much of the appearance of the hat's finish is due to the passing of time as opposed to what Lincoln and others may have thought was a perfectly acceptable cosmetic condition.

 

[Steve1857]

Yes, it was not collapsible. Also not what we would consider a Silk Top Hat.

Exactly, Steve. The early collapsible Top Hats would have been made of a form of silk satin. Pure silk on its own would not have withstood countless collapsing and reforming.

 

[Steve1857]

Very interesting. I wonder how much of the appearance of the hat's finish is due to the passing of time as opposed to what Lincoln and others may have thought was a perfectly acceptable cosmetic condition.

As it points out in the article, the black silk "was worn to a rusty brown".

It does, however, give it a somewhat beaver felt look, which is what original Top Hats were made of.

 

[Steve1857]

Ouch! Maybe then his remark was the height of rudeness for the time.

I doubt very much that your teacher's story is true. However, it's a great story to make history come alive.

I also think that the height of rudeness was the lady sitting on Lincoln's hat, or anyone's hat for that matter

 

[mayserwegener]

As it points out in the article, the black silk "was worn to a rusty brown".

It does, however, give it a somewhat beaver felt look, which is what original Top Hats were made of.

Steve, It's very thin so I tend to think it's probably Silk Plush. I didn't look into this in detail so I don't know how they verified this was Lincoln's Silk Top Hat.