Borsalino fedora, qualita supremore?

[Naphtali]

I have Borsalino fedora, qualita supremore, Cavanough edge, circa 1950s. As best you can from this information, please identify this hat's percentage of beaver fur felt.

 

[Daniele Tanto]

As best you can from this information, please identify this hat's percentage of beaver fur felt

0,000 the amount of beaver fur unless there is, on the sweatband or on the lining, the word "Castoro" or "Beaver"

 

[Naphtali]

0,000 the amount of beaver fur unless there is, on the sweatband or on the lining, the word "Castoro" or "Beaver"

Neither word occurs. . . . Such is life.

 

[Pellie]

0,000 the amount of beaver fur unless there is, on the sweatband or on the lining, the word "Castoro" or "Beaver"

And what about 'Nutria'?

 

[Daniele Tanto]

And what about 'Nutria'?

"In the first decades of the last century, many families in the Po Valley chose to dedicate themselves to the breeding of a rodent native to southern Argentina: the nutria (Myocastor Coypus). The so-called "castorino - beavers" were bred for fur, but between the 70s and 80s the market suffered a drastic drop in requests, forcing small entrepreneurs to close their doors. The families, now left without work, to avoid the costs associated with the euthanasia of the beavers, released them in the countryside around their land, thus creating the first colonies of nutria in Italy, where this animal had never been at home. From that moment on, the nutria began to wander the canals of the peninsula with its pointed snout, big orange teeth and long, recognizable tail. And it builds its burrows along the banks, going down towards the water and coming back up onto land to protect itself from predators. And it consumes those paths between water and land, because it is a creature of habit and always chooses the same paths and so its trajectories almost seem to slide towards the water, visible from afar in many Italian rivers.
There are no predators for nutrias in Italy, therefore they have become a problem and here I end the story on the presence of nutrias in Italy, but the discussion could continue uninterrupted until today.
This is the current situation, dear Marcel, and I believe that Borsalino started using their furs when they arrived in Italy.
So "Nutria" on the sweatband or lining means that there is a percentage of that fur in the hat felt.
Giuseppe Borsalino has been trying to supply his company with furs for hats since the end of the nineteenth century. He went for this purpose to Australia and New Zealand for rabbit skins

 

[Pellie]

"In the first decades of the last century, many families in the Po Valley chose to dedicate themselves to the breeding of a rodent native to southern Argentina: the nutria (Myocastor Coypus). The so-called "castorino - beavers" were bred for fur, but between the 70s and 80s the market suffered a drastic drop in requests, forcing small entrepreneurs to close their doors. The families, now left without work, to avoid the costs associated with the euthanasia of the beavers, released them in the countryside around their land, thus creating the first colonies of nutria in Italy, where this animal had never been at home. From that moment on, the nutria began to wander the canals of the peninsula with its pointed snout, big orange teeth and long, recognizable tail. And it builds its burrows along the banks, going down towards the water and coming back up onto land to protect itself from predators. And it consumes those paths between water and land, because it is a creature of habit and always chooses the same paths and so its trajectories almost seem to slide towards the water, visible from afar in many Italian rivers.
There are no predators for nutrias in Italy, therefore they have become a problem and here I end the story on the presence of nutrias in Italy, but the discussion could continue uninterrupted until today.
This is the current situation, dear Marcel, and I believe that Borsalino started using their furs when they arrived in Italy.
So "Nutria" on the sweatband or lining means that there is a percentage of that fur in the hat felt.
Giuseppe Borsalino has been trying to supply his company with furs for hats since the end of the nineteenth century. He went for this purpose to Australia and New Zealand for rabbit skins

Thank you dear Daniele

 

[Daniele Tanto]

Neither word occurs. . . . Such is life

I'm sorry about the delusion.
The history of Borsalino felts is complex because Italy is not rich in furs to use as felt. Sheep - Rabbits - Hares, from this trio of not very noble furs, Borsalino, Barbisio, Panizza, Vanzina and the other Italian hatters created their felts. Poverty sometimes sharpens the wits. All the aforementioned hatters clearly indicated this when they had noble material in the felt mixture. Marketing existed even then

 

[jlee562]

Contemporary hat buyers get caught up too much in beaver content, methinks.

The vast majority of factory hats were not 100% beaver. To consider Stetson, just considering the surviving samples around here (which of course is not necessarily a representative sample in a historical context), we have healthy Stetson 100 and 7xCB threads, but compared to say, the Playboy threads, and the Stratoliner thread, most of the hats in the OR thread, the Whippet thread, the 3xCB thread, etc, etc, etc combined, there's a bigger picture that starts to take shape.