Just got this one...

[Fatdutchman]

All right, now I'm through. I got the last one I wanted. This one is a brown Stetson and it's going to stay a western hat (though heavily restyled...). I was the only bidder, and it's costing me more to ship it than what I'm paying for the hat, which suits me fine! It's amazing how cheap western hats can go for on ebay. Just not the demand, I suppose. I've seen several nice hats go for $15-$20. Hats that would cost you well over a hundred bucks new. Rarely do they seem to go for more than $50, but every now and then, two people get into a bidding war, and the price goes up, up, up. I just watched a totally ordinary Stetson silver belly western hat go for $50-some odd bucks, and a "Rip's Western Wear" hat (which may or may not mean anything to hat collectors, I don't know), go for something like $102. Most don't though, and they often have only one bidder...sometimes none at all. Another large Stetson (4" brim, 6+" crown) I was watching had only one bid and sold for $19.99. So many of these hats have good fedora style potential... So, if you're wanting to build up your hat collection with decent hats at cheap prices, ebay really is the way to go. Unless you're a size 7 1/8 then just forget about it, they won't have anything for you....

If you do want a hat on ebay, my advice is to not watch it closely. It will worry you to death (it sure does me....). DON'T get into a bidding war. These hats don't seem to be too hot and heavy in that department anyway, but... I've just waited until sometime the day that the auction is ending, put in my absolute maximum bid, and walk away. Come back and check on it later, just to see if you got it.

Here's the brown one I just "won"...

Again, with that same awful pleather band that came on the "revenger" I got the other week. I have since seen it on MANY Stetson hats of various styles on ebay. This one also has the horse drinking from the cowboy hat printed in the crown of the lining. Any of you all have any ideas as to the date of these hats? If I were to guess, I'd say probably around 1980, but that's only a guess. [huh]

 

[fatwoul]

I hope that colour is accurate, because I really like it.

 

[Fatdutchman]

Me too, because brown (just plain brown....not ultra dark brown, not reddish brown) for some reason is REALLY hard to find in a hat these days. When I say I want "medium brown", someone shows me something so dark it's almost black....