Frontporchcharlie
Familiar Face
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- 53
Picked up this one the other day, I don't know anything about it other that it's a No. 1 Quality hat. Original price was $14.95.
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Stetson No. 1 Quality
- Thread starter jimmy the lid
- Start date
MikeinRome
One Too Many
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- 1,359
About 1941-42 Stetson Number 1 Quality Vita Felt hat, with 3 1/2 inch brim with underbinding and 6 1/4 inch open crown. It has the smaller No. 1 Quality emblem seen in later hats and this is a very early example of it. It's also an early example of a Vita Felt Western Stetson. Purchased from a Lounge member but never posted on FL by him. The Lot Number is on the side instead of the front and it's very faint. All I can tell for sure is the first number is 7 and maybe the second is 7, but I won't attempt to guess the entire number. I don't think it's possible that this hat is any later than 1942 at the max.
PS - My Gene Autrey Number 1 Quality hat, Lot Number 7686, has the older large Number 1 Quality emblem, and he signed it in August 1941.
PS - My Gene Autrey Number 1 Quality hat, Lot Number 7686, has the older large Number 1 Quality emblem, and he signed it in August 1941.
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MikeinRome
One Too Many
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About 1940 Stetson Number 1 Quality with 3 1/2 inch brim as finished and 7 inch open crown. Lot Number 7618. Purchased from a Lounge member but never posted on FL by him. I started to say this was a late 30's hat, but since it's become apparent that the Stetson Lot Numbers seem to run up to about 1942, I've amended my date estimate.
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MikeinRome
One Too Many
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I sent this hat to be cleaned and stretched. I also had the crown reshaped to copy a crown that Jesse John did to a hat some months back, because I wanted something different from my other hat crowns. Thanks, Jesse!
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Fantastic
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Flawless!
Thank you.
Stunning!!!
Thanks, HJ. looking forward to the one you’ll soon be posting.
carouselvic
I'll Lock Up
- Messages
- 5,311
- Location
- Kansas
Stevenson in Manhattan is where I would go with my dad as a kid. He bought a lot of hats there. I still live there. I like to tell folks I like on the upper west side…
MikeinRome
One Too Many
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Back around 1990, I had a serious girlfriend who lived at the corner of West 57th and 8th Avenue, where I'd sometimes stay.
carouselvic
I'll Lock Up
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- 5,311
- Location
- Kansas
I was just trying to be funny. This Manhattan and Salina are both Kansas towns.
MikeinRome
One Too Many
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I wasn't paying attention enough to get the joke, watching TV news at the same time.
MikeinRome
One Too Many
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Stetson Number 1 Quality with 3 1/4 inch brim and 5 1/2 inch open crown. The Lot Number looks like either 48X5 or 43X5 to me, and the fact that it has an inventory tag pre-dating the brown tags suggests it's before 1920.but it might date right around 1920 at the latest.
The hat was advertised as a U.S. Forest Service hat having no brand markings!! I assume that's because they were also selling a Forest Service field jacket and they must have gotten them both from the same source and made an assumption.
The hat was advertised as a U.S. Forest Service hat having no brand markings!! I assume that's because they were also selling a Forest Service field jacket and they must have gotten them both from the same source and made an assumption.
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Yowza!!! That's KILLER, Mike!
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1930’s Stetson No. 1Q, Lot 7500. Felt is White Coney & out of this world!
“White Coney”
“White Coney”
MikeinRome
One Too Many
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- 1,359
As a cautionary note, I don't know if the felt is actually White Coney or if that's just the color, just as Belgian Beaver was a color and not the felt. Maybe old catalogs say something.
I've got a couple of super White Stetsons from this same period and I love them.
That’s a beauty, HJ. Keep your fingers clean.
- Messages
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“A vintage white coney fur felt Stetson hat is a classic, collector-grade hat made primarily from rabbit (coney) fur felt—a soft, lightweight material prized in mid-20th-century hatmaking before higher-X beaver blends became the standard marketing label.” — Cowboy Cartel
“Coney" is the traditional hatmaking term for European rabbit or hare fur. Pure coney or coney-dominant blends produce a dense, smooth, and supple felt that holds a sharp crease well while remaining lighter than heavy beaver felt. [1]
Stetson produced coney and rabbit-blend dress and Western hats heavily from the 1930s through the 1970sat its original Philadelphia factory. Rather than stamping "Coney" on the sweatband, vintage Stetsons typically used quality tiers like Royal Stetson, Royal De Luxe, or lower "X" ratings (3X–5X)to denote rabbit-and-beaver blends. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]
True bright white fur felt was popular for Hollywood Westerns (such as Tom Mix's signature hats), parade wear, and summer dress hats. Over decades, vintage white fur felt naturally mellows into an ivory, cream, or pale silverbelly patina. [1, 2]
