Hat grumble grrrr

[jake_fink]

It's official... for me anyway, buying hats on Ebay is NO LONGER ANY FUN. In fact, it's annoying. Everything, from the primo old stuff to semi-crappy newer hats to (my personal faves) the world weary beaters are over bid. It's nuts!

And before anyone says, hey, wow, that's a good thing, you should know that it's not (unless you intend to sell your hats); it doesn't mean more people are wearing hats, only that the same few bidders have inherited money, or won the lottery, or decided to forego groceries in favour of hats (or perhaps they are topping their friends, and that would be very kind of them, and that would be a good thing, but somehow I think that is not the case).

Now I understand the need for trophies as well as any man... let's face it, it's a guy thing, this mania to collect. So fine, I get it, but it's a little weird, to me, to see the same names bidding on hats over and over and over and over. I'm not even intending on bidding on some of them, I'm just checking them out and bang, there they are, the usual suspects.

I guess the thing that sucks the fun out of it is when I think about bidding into a price range that I know to be (or at least believe to be) outrageous for the hat in question. I don't like feeling ripped off. I don't like questioning my own sanity. So... you'll be gald to hear there is one less bidder to duke it out with, from now on I'm buying hats anywhere but Ebay... and it's about time I got my head into a good, new, maybe even a custom, hat.

Good bye Ebay... we used to have something. :cry: :eusa_booh

 

[Baron Kurtz]

Yep, it sucks. I got my first Stratoliner from eBay just at the end of November last year. 2 bids and $36. Now pretty much anything is going nuts.

Good for those of us who're out to sell some hats!

bk

 

[RedPop4]

I understand your feelings. I've just begun delving into eBay for hats.
I got the first one I bid on, and I HOPE that I did NOT snipe anyone from here whit it. I have a thread about it....Borsalino San Remo that I got for $23.51 and $9.50 shipping.

If I DID snipe one of you, I am very sorry. I got what I thought is an amazing deal, of course I won't know for a few days yet.I DO think that discretion in searching for and watching hats on eBay is the best way to do it. But I see some of these prices, just this first week into it and I see the phenomenon you're describing. As someone wanting to acquire a few more lids, don't need too many, it is frustrating.

 

[Hemingway Jones]

Check out the vintage shops. That's where the gold is.
eBay is strange. Who is buying these hats? Where are these people? Why don't I see more hats on the street?

I am as frustrated as you are. I would love to score a vintage Stetson: a Whippet, Stratoliner, or an Open Road, but anything that says Stetson and is a fedora is going for top dollar, especially in the larger sizes.

-Everything seems to be in a size 7.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Check out the vintage shops. That's where the gold is.

Not in Southern California, unless you want '60s porkpies and '70s "Woody Allen" hats.

 

[scotrace]

And the smell of money brings the sharks

Not a hat, but a hat box. I've been trying to poach a Stratoliner hat box for months, and finally did. After asking the seller detailed questions about condition and then bidding on what was described as a dent-free-hole-free-peeling-free-crack-free-stink-free item, it arrived with fist-sized hole in the bottom, dents, cracks, peeling paper and a fine stench. I cost too little to screw with returning it.
I patched and cleaned it up.
Say, did you guys know that a Stratoliner hatbox is so uniquely shaped it is only good for holding a Stratoliner hat? :O
Which I don't have?
Oh well.

 

[Baron Kurtz]

Say, did you guys know that a Stratoliner hatbox is so uniquely shaped it is only good for holding a Stratoliner hat? :O
Which I don't have?
Oh well.

Interesting. The stratoliner box i got has no chance of ever being able to hold my stratoliner hat. The box is TINY.

bk

 

[scotrace]

Interesting. The stratoliner box i got has no chance of ever being able to hold my stratoliner hat. The box is TINY.

bk

Yeah! What's with that anyway? I guess I can stash - ? Something really light weight and oval in it?

 

[Baron Kurtz]

Yeah! What's with that anyway? I guess I can stash - ? Something really light weight and oval in it?

Your Stratoliner box is small too?

Right now i've got my Homburg in it. It has a relatively stingy brim. If i roll the sides of the brim of the Strat up i can get it in there, but i don't like doing so. I fear that such treatment will permanently affect the brim.

bk

 

[Katt in Hat]

I didn't want to start a thread so I'm here with a question.

Stetson Sovereign vs. Royal Stetson

Which was the better grade, if that applies? Any other info. will be well taken, not stirred.

 

[Damon Falzone]

Jake fink, I totally agree with you. Your/our frustration with ebay is justified. Looking into a new, custom hat just might be the way to go. (It must be so nice to wear a hat that actually fits right.) As a craftsman, I'm now ready, willing and able to support this fine craft and art of custom hatmaking.

 

[jeboat]

Frustrated hat buyer

I agree that the Ebay hat auctions are out of reach for a lot of us. I have been looking into fedoras seriously for just under one year and have seen the average price of a decent fedora skyrocket. My first few hats averaged about $30.00-40.00. These same middle-of-the-road hats (Whippets, Stratoliner, Knox 20's, Open Roads, etc) are going for around $100.00 or more depending on how creative the seller is in describing his hat.

The only way to combat the trend is to cull your own herd while the prices are high and stop buying from Ebay. The total cost for some of these Ebay hats is ridiculous if you have one cleaned and blocked like most of them need.

I say save your money and buy a custom hat from the very fine vendors on this forum. You know what you are getting and are guaranteed to have a pleasant experience in the process.

jeboat:cool2: :cool2: :cool2:

 

[K.D. Lightner]

Well, I just bought a royal blue Selentino off Ebay with buy-it-now. Paid almost twice as much as I did for the green "Queen" Selentino I won on Ebay last summer.

What a difference a (half-) day makes....

karol

 

[PutALidOnIt]

Just another victim

I agree with Jake, especially for those of us who are avid wearers and not collectors. On the other hand, if I can't compete, I won't play; that is my choice. I believe that the escalating price phenomenon is neither good nor bad; it just is.

I have been through this sort of feeding frenzy with carnival glass, depression glass, 50's and 60's teak furniture, guitars and amplifiers, and now vintage fur fedoras. I love them all, but I am not ashamed to bow out when acquisition becomes competition, or when the wallets are bigger than brains. Remember there are $17,000 to $25,000 Panamas out there...but, who cares?

1. I refuse to feed the fire, and I won't spend the bucks (even though I could) just to preserve the species. I bought low and sold high on lots of stuff, and that's just advance trend perception - some of us have it, some don't.

2. If you can buy a better new hat at a given price, go ahead (talking fur felt here). No new hat under $200 matches a vintage Stetson, Knox, Disney, Borso, Adam, Cavanagh --- whatever --- for $100. I won't pay it, but next year, if I want one, you bet I will.

3. Strats, Whips, and OR's are primo right now, and they aren't making any more of them. Anything vintage that is near-new and wearable will fetch an escalating premium. Demand dictates the market, period.

4. I, too was buying good hats on ebay at <$50 a year or so ago. 20 years ago I also bought a '57 Les Paul, a '63 Stratocaster, and a Vox AC30 all for under $300 ....once. The same items today are in the $5000 - $20,000 range (each). In 2 or 3 years you will see wearable primo vintage hats (not museum quality like the 1-of-10 Cuban Stetson) in the $250-$500 range while the moth divot dingies and RatPack stingies will still be under $50.

5. As of today, I have exactly 24 fedoras that I like and I wear them daily in rotation. If I see another that I like at a reasonable price, thank you, I will have another. If the price is exorbitant for my taste, that old hunk of animal parts can go on someone else's head. Not sour grapes, just my personal value judgment - your mileage may differ.

Remember the old adage; if you find gold, keep it to yourself. We, the generous, share our passion here on the lounge, and in our sharing, have helped to raise the consciousness and the prices. Not everyone willing to pay big $$$ is a shark. Again, it is a case of differing value judgments.

In conclusion, I am sad that I will have to pay more for what I want. I knew it was coming (like doubled home insurance rates here in Florida), I don't like it, but it is an incentive to be more creative in your search methods if you want a vintage lid at a bargain price. Now instead of entering a search on eBay, you will have to cruise the thrifts and beat the bushes (and estate sales) to obtain your grail.

Whew...what a rant...

 

[tonyb]

Yes, prices have gone up quite a bit. But you can still find a steal on eBay, it just ain't as easy as it used to be.
I refuse, on principle, to pay much for an old hat. (My wife, on the other hand, will bid higher than I will, but that's only when there's a gift-giving occasion on the horizon and she knows I wouldn't mind having a particular hat.) Finding a bargain usually means finding a seller who doesn't know enough to give the hat a proper description and/or listing. If scoring a good deal that way amounts to taking advantage of the seller's ignorance, well, I'm guilty, although my conscience doesn't bother me much over paying 20-some bucks for a hat the seller probably bought for five.
Still, it galls me to see what one particular eBay seller does to move his merchandise. Y'all are probably familiar with the guy, and perhaps he lurks here. He takes some snazzy photos of the hats and writes these really silly stories and descriptions (the liners are almost always "shimmering," for instance, and if there happens to be some purple in it, he'll inform you that purple is the color of royalty) and even goes so far as to suggest that obvious damage, such as moth divots, somehow renders the hats more desirable. Like me, this guy buys low. (I lost an auction to him a coupla-three weeks ago and then I saw what had to be the very same hat back on eBay, along with his fancy photos and flowery prose.) He recently sold a Stratoliner so worn that it had a hole at the top of the pinch.
Look, I don't fault a person for turning a profit, even a handsome one. But let's not confuse good salesmanship with plain hucksterism, because if we do we give free enterprise a bad name. There's no need to remind me that as long as there are people out there who will buy his nonsense, he'll stay in business. Still, let's not pretty it up. What he does is take wholesale advantage of other people's ignorance. He's quite well suited to a career in the used-car business. Or politics. (Sorry if I've offended any used-car salesmen or politicians in the bunch. I've actually met an honest one. Once.) His eBay rating is at 100 percent, which indicates that he ships promptly and keeps up on his messages. He probably comes across as a nice guy, too. But then, so did every con man I've ever met.
I've come to recognize the eBay monikers of a few of the gents here, and when I see them bidding I leave the auction alone. Heck, I won't pay much anyway, so I see no point in pushing the price up by even a buck. And I've had some pleasant exchanges with guys here who were happy to pay considerably more than I would. It's not that they paid too much, necessarily, considering what new hats cost, but there has to be tons and tons of old hats still waiting to come out of mothballs.

 

[Bud-n-Texas]

Deals are hard to come by

Yes, prices have gone up quite a bit. But you can still find a steal on eBay, it just ain't as easy as it used to be.

I did luck out today, and picked up a nice hat for just under 13.00. When I get it I will post it. Until then mum is the word. Create a little suspense.

 

[tonyb]

Good for you, man. I look forward to seeing it.

 

[John in Covina]

And so it goes.

Many different items and collectables go thru cycles in what's hot and what's not. To be in something early on and have been able to take advantage of the low prices is golden. It doesn't happen for all of us but for some it does.

If you watch the Antiques Roadshow on PBS you will occasionally hear about items that were HOT and have moved to NOT. I think animation cell art was a hot one, as they thought there wasn't much around and EBAY came on the scene. Then it was found there was tons of it around and the price dropped just as the Law of Supply and Demand would call for in such circumstances.
It has happened with a number of things and the experts on the Roadshow call it "The Ebay Effect" to note that type of drop in value.

In the last year or so the same rise in prices has happened for both vintage and even NOS (new old stock) straight razors. Plus in Straight razors you have two sets of collectors, true collectors looking for examples of razors of a specific manufacturer or group of manufactuers and the USERS. as opposed to a quick clean and polish to stick in some case for display, users actually sharpen and shave with the deadly beasts. For a while you could get some really cool stuff and not have to ransome your mom for the money. Suddenly out of the blue came a crew of collectors and decimated the straight razor listings for months on end. One guy was spending thousands of dollars per week. the old timers could not compete the collectors were bidding against each other and drove prices first to double, triple and quadruple for the good stuff. It took some period of months but these collectors could not sustain the pace and eventually dropped out. The prices moved back to just under double what they were. Speculation was that there were antique dealers bringing it in for somebody they'd gotten hooked, I don't know. But if these guys were buying for themselves, they had a lot of money to burn.

So the question is are we looking at collectors or dealers or is it just that the popularity is growing and putting the pressure on the supply? How long is this boom gonna last? What's gonna be left after the shakeout of the collapse?

In the mean time, explore other venues and keep an eye out for the overlooked bargin. I know I have my list as to what I am looking for and I am also open to targets of opportunity. Now all I need is some new found wealth!

Each EBAY auction is a little Microcosm of an economics lesson.

Goodnight and may God Bless - Red Skellton

 

[jake_fink]

It isn't just the rise in prices... though hat prices at Cabaret Vintage - my local vintage clothing haven - have yet to sky-rocket the way they have on Ebay... afterall, I'm not even really thinking of buying many, make that most, of the hats I look at. Seeing the same names bidding on every single stinking hat that comes down the pipeline, though, is what I found annoying earlier today, and now find merely... bemusing.

I imagine a scene not unlike the end of Raiders... a hangar full of rarely worn or unworn hats while outside the cuddled masses are left bare-headed.

It makes me weep, but truly.

Anyway, the prices will drop like a stone when these half dozen or so compulsive bidders get their fill (hey, I only gots one head, hyuk hyuk) or run out of dough trying.

 

[matei]

I agree, it is frustrating. I could kick myself for not looking into vintage hats when we lived in NY years ago. Arghhh - so many second-hand and goodwill shops in the area, and I never, ever went in. What a rube. Now I've got to pay the high prices as well if I want something vintage. I lucked out about 5 months ago when I got a Royal Stetson, but it isn't really my dream hat. The brim is only 2.5" and I'd prefer something wider. However it is the only vintage hat I've got and I'm happy with that. Am I going to try to get more? You bet. But I will try to avoid paying through the nose... it might take longer, but eventually I'll come across one.

It is fate. If you are meant to get something - it will happen. Sometimes people within the community need to help each other out as well.

For example, about a year and a half ago I was after a particular re-issue of a Gibson Les Paul, made with a brazilian rosewood fretboard. They were no longer being made, and were somewhat hard to find (and quite dear). On eBay they were being sold for silly amounts of money. I posted something on a forum where I mentioned I was looking for said model, but somewhat disheartened that I couldn't find what I was after.

I got a PM from someone selling the exact guitar I was looking for. He didn't take me for a ride - he sold it to me at a very fair price and the instrument was top-notch, barely played. It meant a lot to me, and I in turn have done the same, many times, for other people.

I'm not a cut-throat capitalist out to skin every last buyer alive. It is normal to make a profit, but it is more civilised person that can find it within themselves to lend a hand to someone else in the "community" (in this case the Fedora-wearing community).

I've read of examples in this forum of similar situations - so perhaps there is hope.