Borsalino won! It has arived!!

[tonyb]

Just checked: open crown, it's 5 inches tall. The brim is 2.5 inches. It also has that odd liner thing between the leather sweat and the felt.

I've managed to do a good hand blocking job -- the only thing I've failed to do is get small dimples out of the ribbon, where it's sewn to the felt. Any ideas?

Steam and the flat side of a (clean, of course) butter knife. That's a tip MattC (I believe it was) passed along a few months back. It worked great for smoothing out wrinkles. Don't know how would do with those dimples, but it can't hurt.

 

[DanielJones]

Visigoth: Open Crown was about 5 3/4". It's about the tallest I've had next to my Peters bros which had a (I swear) 6 1/4" Crown.
The color sounds great. What is the color of the sweat barrier?

Cheers!

Dan

 

[Visigoth]

The sweat barrier is a dark blue-green. It's folded over -- textured on the inside, smooth on the outside. In fact -- I'd never noticed this before -- but two other thirties Borsalinos have the same strip sewn in, although it's smaller (one 1930, one 1938).

And that knife trick does seem to have helped! Thanks!

 

[DanielJones]

Well, after carefully peeling the sweat barrier from the liner, which caused a little sweat along the way, I found the ID tag. It looks a little like the diagram below:

2479 58172 6 1/2
Grano Detasti

Do our resident Borsalino experts have an idea of age and maker from these number? Thanks.

Oh, also, hand written on the sweat barrier in red is what looks like a price. Hard to tell what it is for sure because of semi sloppy writing. But I think it is either 2.83 or 20.83 with a very znall zero after the 2. Most likely it is 2.83 with the decimal point as a small circle instead of a dot. Go figure.[huh]

Cheers!

Dan

 

[Visigoth]

Well, the dating system -- which doesn't always work -- would put that hat at 1958 (first two digits of the second number).

Not that I'm an expert, but that strikes me as pretty late -- sure doesn't look like a fifties hat to me. The number system is unreliable.

I'm going to post photos in a bit of my hat, including the liner and logo; why don't you post a photo of the liner, and we'll see if they're similar?

 

[DanielJones]

Well, the dating system -- which doesn't always work -- would put that hat at 1958 (first two digits of the second number).

Not that I'm an expert, but that strikes me as pretty late -- sure doesn't look like a fifties hat to me. The number system is unreliable.

I'm going to post photos in a bit of my hat, including the liner and logo; why don't you post a photo of the liner, and we'll see if they're similar?

Visigoth: I think there is a shot of the liner in the first few pics of this post for comparison.

Cheers!

Dan

 

[Visigoth]

Photos of the Grand Luxe

Okay, here it is -- before, and after. The two smaller pics at the top are from the ebay ad. The seller thought it was perhaps a woman's hat. (It arrived rolled in that box.) The next ones are after my stretch and hand block. I was aiming for something between a Stratoliner profile and a Maltese Falcon bash.

 

[DanielJones]

Great hat and great work on the hat Visigoth!:eusa_clap
Have you tried to roll it up again and see if it bounces back into the shape you put into it?
It looks like not so similar liners except for the yellowed protector on the top.

I would love to find out a bit more about Giuseppe Gallieni and the hats he made & when.

Cheers!

Dan

 

[Visigoth]

Thanks!

The protector is not quite that yellow, actually -- closer to the color of yours. I wonder if Giuseppe is the hat dealer -- is his name on the leather sweatband as well? And is your protector set into a cream-colored silk liner? (This one is *really* nice material.)

I'm going to do that test: rolling up the hat. The felt is almost spongy, in a way: when you press on it, hard, it leaves a visible impression -- which, as I say, disappears if you hold it in steam for a moment.

 

[DanielJones]

Yep, his name is in the sweat band as well.

Could very well be a dealer, but it seems unusual to see the dealers name more prominant than the makers name in the liner.
The liner is a very light cream color, and yes the protector is set into it.
The spongyness is very interesting. Has be something ment to be rolled up for travel, the shape of the box stands to reason on that.
Now, have you been able to date yours by the ID tag?

Cheers!

Dan

 

[Visigoth]

Well, as I said above, I *think* it's 1933. But your tag casts doubt on the whole system. Here's what it reads:

4A684 33600
Palladio 4 1/2

Do the dimensions of this hat seem early thirties?

The size tag is white cloth, with blue numbers in a double blue rectangle. There is *no* Eulan Bayer tag, which indicates (I think?) an early hat. Does yours have it?

 

[Visigoth]

Ooh: I just tried rolling it up. Unbelievable. Sprung back without a mark, even without using steam!

Mind you, this was only for a few seconds -- I suspect if I packed it for a trip, I'd need a kettle to get it back in shape on the other end.

 

[DanielJones]

The size tag is white cloth, with blue numbers in a double blue rectangle. There is *no* Eulan Bayer tag, which indicates (I think?) an early hat. Does yours have it?

The only tag attached to the hat is the one under the sweatband with the serial numbers & the hat size. Other than that I hadn't found any other tags, cloth or paper.

Well it looks like you have a good roll up for travel. I suppose you could purchase a little portable Stanly or Jiffy Steamer to have it bounce back. That would work well in removing wrinkles in your travel clothes as well.
Two bird with one stone.

Cheers!

Dan

 

[Visigoth]

Frankly, yours looks as if it has pretty much the same kind of felt. Have you tried rolling it?

 

[DanielJones]

Frankly, yours looks as if it has pretty much the same kind of felt. Have you tried rolling it?

Haven't rolled it. The felt doesn't have the spongey feel to it. It is quite thin, soft and supple to the touch but it is very dense as well. Not a lot of snap, but if there were stiffener added to it, it would most likely have that snappy feel. I don't think this one is a roller, but I won't discount anything.

Cheers!

Dan

 

[Visigoth]

Okay, just noticed another potential difference. Even though yours has a barrier between the leather and the felt, it does look as if the leather sweatband is sewn directly onto the felt; whereas mine is sewn to the doubled up barrier. (Is this what's known as "reeding"?)

 

[DanielJones]

Ah, now we've reached beyond the realm of my knowledge. I'm not quite up on what 'reeding' is. Please enlighten.
The sweat band is sewn directly to the felt and the sweat barrier is a single sayer as well, not rolled over. Of course it has sort of welded it self to the sweat band and felt over time. But I'm going to take my time with the steam and see if it can work loose without damaging the barrier.

 

[Visigoth]

This thread pretty much skews our dating:

http://www.thefedoralounge.com/showthread.php?t=3314

Suggests that the protector in the liner makes these fifties hats (or perhaps very late forties). Now... what I want to know, is whether this is accurate. The protector is not precisely the plastic I've seen in fifties liners: it's a kind of papery thing. The thread also suggests that the barrier between the sweat and felt is a later addition: this is, I'm fairly sure, inaccurate -- my Borsalino from 1930 (fairly sure of this date) has the barrier.

I'm beginning to think our Borsalino dating info is weirdly flawed.

 

[WEEGEE]

Apple Jacks

Hat on apple jacks...

 

[DanielJones]

Well then, I'm sure there has to be a way. Serial numbers don't get added unless they're cataloged. Thus there should be a resource for an accurate dating of our felt head covers. A little patience and scavaging should yield results eventually.
I'm quite sure that if someone here comes up with the definitive answer they will share for all to learn.

Cheers!

Dan