Officer caps from this period feature both crests.
There may be some overlap, though seems a reasonable point to give to the end of the Roundel. Here are two U. Army officer caps with different crests. It was designed to create price ceilings for similar products among various manufacturers within an industry. So, Hat Corporation of America, Stetson, Lee, and other hat manufacturers would agree on which hats among their various lines were similar, and abide by a fixed-price ceiling for these hats. Many manufacturers declined to followed the OPA recommendations, and dropped the use of the label by Here are two examples, one a label from a Dobbs Boater note the standard crest and the other the remnants of a label from a s Dobbs Derby with a Roundel tip sticker that has the Price Ceiling listed.
There appears to have once been a consumer-removable portion with the pertinent OPA information, and was removed long ago.
A Guide to Vintage Men's Fedoras
Kind of like mattress tags, in a way. By the late s the Dobbs name could be debossed in gold, typically on a textured sweatband, and this lasted until the early s. It was usually associated with a hat model with some longevity, and thus featured the model name below the Dobbs imprint. The debossed Dobbs Coach made its sweatband debut right around the lates.
Originally it was a plain debossing, like most Dobbs hats. Also note the Guild Edge debossment. Guild Edge was the name Dobbs eventually settled on for a Cavanagh Edge, and was first used on hats in By the time of the Korean War in the earlys, Dobbs debossed the Coach in gold. The later logos do not feature as deep of a debossment as the earlier ones, nor the crisp gold edges. This example is from The decade of the s saw the standardized factory labels change again as new printing equipment was put into use.
These labels were used across all of the lines of Hat Corporation of America until sometime after , when the label changed slightly.
Dating Dobbs Hats, Part II: - Present
Exactly when these were first used is unknown, but they used on OPS marked hats see below for OPS information , and thus circa is a reasonable estimate. It was in effect from January 24, , until April 30, Labels were affixed to hats just as they had been a decade earlier. Again, not all hats from this time period may have had these labels. Liner tips show distinctions based on model and price. Models like the Game Bird and Rainbow would continue to feature custom liners.
Models for lower-tier hats revived the earlier half-color crest as seen on this s Hanover Square. Colors could be blue, green, red, or brown, and all seem to feature a plastic tip protector.
These usually had oilskin tip protectors instead of plastic, even into the s. These perhaps showed up in the lates. The key difference between the s labels and the s labels is the removal of the block depth from the label. With most hats having short crowns by that point, and fewer men being fashion savvy when it came to subtle distinctions in crown height and brim width, it was apparently deemed unnecessary. Lower-priced hats revived the all solid color crest from the s, only with a plastic tip protector.
Notice that sweatband and wonderful photos nbsp MS The plastic was often just for quotthe hat.
As before, red, blue, green, and brown were offered. Others used a simplified standard crest, sometimes with a plastic or oilskin tip protector, sometimes without. Other times we know through hat company advertisements that a particular, marked model was only sold during a specific time period. But usually one can only make an educated guess based on when particular models were introduced taken with the various manufacturing methods used on the hat.
For that we are shocked and grateful. One of the reasons you found us, though, is because information on hats is not just hard to find, it is very, very hard to find. Here we endeavor to answer that question. This fascinating page has detailed photos of Stetson cowboy hat collection.
These hats were made from the late s, through the s. This is an interesting walk through my personal collection of antique fedoras. Please enjoy the journey. Collectors have the most information on Stetsons but even that is hard to pin down. The following is what collectors know so far about dating a Stetson. This information is always changing as collectors are finding out more and more and newer vintage examples come to light.
Dating Stetsons by inventory, style and sizing, or re-order number tags might only give you a general set of dates of not more than a decade or two, but taking note of these inventory tags can give you a general idea of the era in which your hat was made. The idea with these tags was that you could re-order your favorite hat style simply by telling Stetson what your tag said. On that tag is a style number, a block number, and a size, etc. With this innovative system a customer never had to guess what sort of hat he had and never had to be forced to try a new style when his old hat wore out.
If he liked the type of hat he had he could get it replaced with one exactly like it. Customer service was the word of the day! These tags had other uses, too. It was also a way for Stetson to keep track of what was going on in the factory. The tags helped track what hats sold the most and where they were in the manufacturing process. Whether on a Stetson tag or on that of another hat maker, some of the information on these tags were crown depth, hat size, blocking number, finish style, sometimes even color appeared on them but not often. And, of course, the name of the hat company and sometimes its address were also on these tags.
On Stetsons there were two of these stickers glued to the felt behind the sweatband, at the back of the hat. This is the inside of the hat. Follow the arrow and look behind the sweatband for the tags. Here is what it looks like when you turn down the leather sweatband.
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- Dating a Vintage Western (Cowboy) hat | The Fedora Lounge?
- 1940s Factory Label.
Now, be very, very careful when you turn that sweatband down. On older hats the sweatband stitching can be very delicate. Turning down that leather in a rough manner can easily result in the stitching breaking apart of the leather cracking. If you are afraid of damaging the hat, just take a peek behind that leather. If the hat is in great shape, though, go ahead and turn it out. But be aware that a leather sweatband is NOT made to be constantly flipped in and out of the hat. Hatters may suggest that the sweat be turned out when drying a modern, newly made hat, but this is NOT a good habit on vintage hats for the reason noted above.
A leather sweatband is generally manufactured to stay flipped inward to hold the proper shape of the hat opening but the bigger problem is age. It is not usually safe to flip sweatbands in and out on an older hat.
Dating a Vintage Western (Cowboy) hat
So, once you see your reorder and size tags, best to take a photo of them and then never flip that sweatband out again if you can help it! Late in the s Stetson instituted a great idea for customer relations. Once he found a hat style he liked, he usually tried to stay with that as long as possible. A man was making a personal statement with his hat. So, Stetson implemented a way for a man to replace his favorite hat with exactly the same style as his lost or worn out hat. The ultimate in customer service.
This reorder system lasted from the late s to about when Stetson finally dropped the service. The separate re-order tag seemed to appear in a myriad of different versions. The first was a brown tag that was almost square—but not quite—and lasted to sometime in the mid to late s. Then came a second version in orange.
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Finally came an orange version that was a bit more rectangular than the second. But there were several other types, to. Still, it is currently unknown just when Stetson started using paper tags inside hats to denote size, style, reorder numbers and block and crown depths. The earliest tag I have seen is from somewhere between the s and In any case, Stetson seems to have had well over a dozen different tags that all appeared in certain eras.
This English Bobby-like police hat was popular in American cities until the early s when they went out of fashion for our police departments. This one is similar to the one above, but has the categories moved around a bit. So, it was made between and The black and white tag is often seen on bowlers. This one has only been seen a handful of times. It perhaps from the s or as late as This was found in a bowler.
Here is another alternate version, this one also a rare sighting. Again it is unknown how long this one was used.