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How do you "mark" your hat as yours?

AlterEgo

A-List Customer
Messages
320
Location
Southern USA
grundie said:
I've had two hats stolen from me. On both occasions it was by drunk girls in passing hen parties. Steal my fancy phone or laptop and I won't really be all that bothered. Steal my hat and I will erupt in to a fiery range infested monster who will hunt you down like the little animal you are.

I have always been tempted to put a label in the hat saying something like "You stole the only thing I had to remind me of my father who passed away before I knew him, Happy now?" in the hope that it guilts them into giving it back to me.

Very interesting, grundie. The only hat ever stolen from me was also by drunk girls. The consequences were far-reaching.

It was New Year's Eve, and my girlfriend and I were going to a party at Barbara's, her best friend and a good friend of mine, as well.

We were all back home from college for the holidays and looking forward to catching up with the old gang from high school. Barbara, though, had just transferred back to a college in our home town, where her family wealth had enabled her to buy her own house. That's where the party was.

As soon as we came in the door, a couple of obviously very inebriated chicks I didn't know snatched the hat off my head, tried it on, and goofed around with it. It was one of my favorite possessions. My grandmother, who was too sick to get out and buy me anything for my birthday, had sent me some money my freshman year in college with instructions to buy myself a present with it.

I looked all over Atlanta, and finally decided to get this sharp hat at Neiman-Marcus. It was a rust-colored alpine style, in pure suede leather, made by Churchill. I loved that hat, wore it all the time in cool and cold weather. This was the late 70s, when few young men wore hats, so I quickly became known on campus as "the dude with the hat." I'd had it a year or so by the time of the party.

Though I was pissed at the pooty-faced gals, I managed to get the hat back from them without too much of a ruckus and placed it, along with my and my girlfriend's coats and scarves and gloves, on the bed with everyone's else's cold-weather raiments in the back bedroom.

She and I helped Barbara clean and straighten up her place and so were the last people to leave. All our other clothes were on bed, but my hat was missing. I knew who'd got it and asked Barbara to get it back from the two chicks, who were new friends she'd made at the college to which she'd recently transferred there in our home town.

Barbara took issue with my use of the word "steal" to describe what had happened to my beloved hat, saying rather that they were probably just so drunk that they'd "accidentally walked out" with it. Now, I've put on some benders in my day, but never have I unknowingly left wearing another's article of clothing!

Whatever she wanted to call it, Barb reluctantly agreed to contact the chicks and do her best to have my hat back at her place by noon the next day. I thought that was the best way to handle the situation--they were her friends, strangers to me, and she would serve as the intermediary without any direct confrontation with me.

Even so, I didn't have a good feeling about Barb's follow-through, so I gave her a phone call about 11:00 AM. No answer, so I drove to her nearby house in person. Just in time, too, as I was able to block the drive where she was backing out in her big 1960s Mercedes 600 limousine.

Barb was all dressed up--said she was en route to have New Year's brunch at the country club with her family--and became irate when I reminded of her hat hat retrieval obligation and wouldn't move my car hemming hers in.

I tried to reason with her--explaining that this was a wake-up call to so-called friends who very well might "borrow" some of the valuable antique collectibles her house was chock full of--but she would not come around.

As a last resort, I told her that since it appeared that she was not only protecting the thieves but might also actually be complicit in the theft, I was calling the police unless she immediately got in my car and we went together to the larcenous ladies' abode.

Huffing, she got in my Buick and directed me to their place, only a few blocks away. I stood to the side of their apartment door so that only Barb could been through the peep hole. Well, guess what? The blonde chick answered the door, in panties and bra, with MY HAT on her head! As soon as she spotted me, she tried to slam the door shut, but I already had it blocked with my foot and adroitly snatched it off her head.

The hat had been seriously crushed to the extent that the crease never would come completely out, and the striking feather was gone. But I had my hat back and wore it for many more years. Just a few years ago, I got it out of its original box for the winter, only to discover that moths had munched the soft suede precisely along the line where the crush-crease was. Though it's really not wearable, there are so many memories associated with that hat that it remains one of my all-time favorite possessions.

And Barbara? She never spoke to me again. Because she and my girlfriend were best friends and their families close associates in the social elite, that was the end of our relationship, as well.

As for me, well, I'm still a tenacious middle-class hat-loving guy who learned that it sometimes takes the dispensation of an object of affection to reveal people's true colors.
 

Neophyte

My Mail is Forwarded Here
Messages
3,445
Location
Chattanooga, TN
Sigh...that story depresses me, and I'd hate to think about what I'd do. The one thing in this world that truly, truly throws me into a rage is the selfish, careless disregard for other's health and property.
I'm afraid I probably wouldn't have handled the situation as gentlemanly as you did...
 

AlterEgo

A-List Customer
Messages
320
Location
Southern USA
hatophile said:
Alterego,

Dude, you have some interesting stories with women and hats, that's for sure!

Thanks, but the nitty-gritty details are too salacious to post on this site.

Back on topic: Those embossing tools are still available. I saw one advertised in the back of a magazine recently, maybe Smithsonian. They're very simple devices that open up like a book, with hand levers on either side to press the imprint into anything with some "give" to it.

My ex-wife had one made up with her full name in fancy script to press into vellum. It came with sheets of gold leaf that made the imprimatur really impressive. I'm sure it would work on a leather hatband, too. While the imprint itself is forever, I'm thinking the gold would not last that long against a sweaty cranium constantly rubbing at it.
 

danofarlington

My Mail is Forwarded Here
Messages
3,122
Location
Arlington, Virginia
AlterEgo said:
Very interesting, grundie. The only hat ever stolen from me was also by drunk girls. The consequences were far-reaching.

.
All this anecdotal evidence leads me to conclude that it is women who are motivated to steal hats, and will go to great lengths to do it. That, I would not have guessed.
 

Pompidou

One Too Many
Messages
1,242
Location
Plainfield, CT
I'm either wearing mine or holding it, or it's sitting within arms' reach. I don't check my hat or coat, because I don't trust anyone that they'll be there when I return. The only thing I value more than my hat, clotheswise, is my leather barnstormer jacket from USWings. I don't baby them, by any means. Rather, I want them to look like they've been through hell, eventually. Nonetheless, I make every effort not to lose them. I even wore both while working in a warehouse for a few years. If it came to work on me, I worked in it. Expensive stuff can make anyone a thief.
 

fenris

One of the Regulars
Messages
214
Location
Philippines
I just had an idea... how about making a personalized hat liner? Maybe some custom hatters out there could include the name of the person in the liner together with the hatter's logo.
 

fenris

One of the Regulars
Messages
214
Location
Philippines
gtdean48 said:
Liners can be easily removed. Sweatbands can't. I like my name or initials on/in the sweatband from customer hatters.

Well, it would be a nice add-on to the sweatband name... You could even have a picture of yourself on the liner, haha!

You guys are afraid of theft as hats over there have some value to other people, here however, they're not seen as valuable and "stealable" items. My only concern is getting it lost by leaving it someplace or having the wind carry if off.

If theft is a concern, writing inside the sweatband is still the best option.
 
Messages
11,579
Location
Covina, Califonia 91722
I don't recall which threads have the pictures but it seemed that many stores used to have an embosser to put in your name or initials.

There were a few styles shown as a gilded imprint of name or initials and I think they had a cut out style that made your initials as a series of small round holes in the leather sweat.
 

Strapped-4-Cache

One Too Many
Messages
1,112
Location
Lawrenceville, GA
I made up some business-size cards on flourescent green cardstock and place them behind the sweat. They have a bold font which catches the eye, then my name and contact information beneath in a smaller font

Most of them are copied from vintage cards - "Get your own!", "Put me back!", "This ain't your lid!", etc.
 

LuvMyMan

I’ll Lock Up.
Messages
4,558
Location
Michigan
A few hats around our home, have had the "ace of spades" from a deck of playing cards with our name and address written on the card, you cut the card in half with some scissors length wise, and it fits behind the leather sweatband nicely.

However, I must confess, the hats in our home, may leave the home but never leave the owner's possession.
 

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