Want to buy or sell something? Check the classifieds
  • The Fedora Lounge is supported in part by commission earning affiliate links sitewide. Please support us by using them. You may learn more here.

Ebay Hats: Victories, Defeats, Gripes & Items of Interest

DiamondJimLA

New in Town
Messages
40
Location
SoCal
s-l1600-6.jpg
s-l1600-7.jpg
I'm new and just posted in the New Members subforum yesterday. This post is about an "interesting" hat I stumbled across on eBay (its new). This is absolutely not why I am getting into hats, but it has a slightly interesting history, so here goes.

The hat is a "Dodgers" hat and I'm a fan (yeh, I heard you not all are!). After I noticed it and being a newly hat person, I started researching. I live and grew up in L.A. There always was and of course still is a large Mexican population, in my younger years more just indigenous rather than recent immigrants. And "East L.A." was the area most known for Mexican families, still is for the most part.

So in or about 1932, Frank (of Frank's Hats) invented what is called the "lowrider hat". Still popular with the Mexican crowd, especially those with lowriders (typically highly restored 50's-60's American cars, but lowered a bunch). Never ever even thought about it, but in retrospect it is a look I've seen around for a long time.

Frank's Hats is still around and still making tons of these hats, as a small "family" operation, now called "Frank's Hats Garcia Hats" (I think they merged with Garcia along the way. Their website is: https://www.frankshatsgarciahats.com/

I am not expecting you to all rush out and buy some lowrider hats, in fact not at all. Just found the history a little interesting. I'll wear mine if I go to a Dodger game (not very often these days) or maybe if they are in the playoffs. Pics of mine above.
 

Louis Mountbatten

A-List Customer
Messages
313
@belfastboy speaks the truth @GuessWho... It’s not just that there are so few men today with head sizes that start with a “6” it’s also that those lucky devils are used to picking gems up for a pittance....
There is a flip side to it, though. When a guy with a 7-5/8 head plunks down $300 and more for a hat, he can also sell it for that. When a 6-7/8 or size 7 guy plunks down $100 for the exact same model in the same shape... he ain't gettin' no $300 if he tries to sell it! About the only exception is Whippet mania. Those are still selling well. Even a size 7 Whippet can sometimes get north of $150.But, if you are trying to sell the smaller sizes, you return is also a pittance (usually, but not always--due to the vagaries of ebay).
 
Messages
19,001
Location
Central California
There is a flip side to it, though. When a guy with a 7-5/8 head plunks down $300 and more for a hat, he can also sell it for that. When a 6-7/8 or size 7 guy plunks down $100 for the exact same model in the same shape... he ain't gettin' no $300 if he tries to sell it! About the only exception is Whippet mania. Those are still selling well. Even a size 7 Whippet can sometimes get north of $150.But, if you are trying to sell the smaller sizes, you return is also a pittance (usually, but not always--due to the vagaries of ebay).


I’m not shedding any tears for the poor sole who’s a size 6 3/4 and has 500 spectacular vintage hats but can only sell them for $20 each. That’s a problem I wouldn’t mind having.
 
Messages
10,855
Location
vancouver, canada
There is a flip side to it, though. When a guy with a 7-5/8 head plunks down $300 and more for a hat, he can also sell it for that. When a 6-7/8 or size 7 guy plunks down $100 for the exact same model in the same shape... he ain't gettin' no $300 if he tries to sell it! About the only exception is Whippet mania. Those are still selling well. Even a size 7 Whippet can sometimes get north of $150.But, if you are trying to sell the smaller sizes, you return is also a pittance (usually, but not always--due to the vagaries of ebay).
so the answer is to buy a hat you like and wear the crap out of it, enjoy it and when it is done celebrate and toss it away....buy another. At $50 you will def get your monies worth from the hat.
 
Messages
18,466
Location
Nederland
@belfastboy speaks the truth @GuessWho... It’s not just that there are so few men today with head sizes that start with a “6” it’s also that those lucky devils are used to picking gems up for a pittance. On a hat many of us would be instantly clicking the buy it now button at $250 in size 7 3/4 will often languish for months at $50 in size 6 7/8…because are smaller headed brethren have 50 similar hats to chose from for the same price or less. I’ll sift through hundreds if not thousands of hats online to find one in my size. If your a size 6 7/8 the hard part is not buying 25 hats a day.
Yes, my wife made me promise to NOT buy her another great vintage hat in spite of my protests that the deals are tooo good to pass up.
See?! Us small sized guys have problems all of our own!;)
 

Louis Mountbatten

A-List Customer
Messages
313
Dishonst ebay sellers used to try that trick all the time in the old days. "Here is something worth $50, folks, but I'm only selling it for $10...... plus $75 shipping." Ebay ended that for the most part when they began charging sellers their fee with shipping included as part of the basis for the fee when it used to be only the sales price excluding shipping costs.Meanwhile, ebay made millions more by hiking the seller fees just because of these few a-holes that tried to rip off buyers with outrageous shipping costs so they could pad their sale price.
 

Forum statistics

Threads
109,287
Messages
3,077,938
Members
54,238
Latest member
LeonardasDream
Top