New guy and a hat shop report...

[randomadam]

Greetings! My name is Adam, and I'm working up a small collection of inexpensive Panamas and modern fur felt hats.

In pursuit of that, I visited Hippodrome Hatters in Baltimore with a friend on Saturday afternoon. After a brief discussion with the proprietor I ended up walking away with a black house brand fur felt fedora for use mainly with a tuxedo and black wool overcoat (I'm in eveningwear roughly a dozen times a year); he successfully convinced me that a homburg wouldn't flatter my angular proportions.

I also learned a few things about the shop. It sounds like he's having supplier problems -- he can move product, but has trouble consistently procuring his preferred quantity and caliber and styles of product from the vendors. He also mentioned that his website hadn't been updated in years and in no way accurately reflected his current or expected future stock. Other posts on this shop in the forum have indicated his reluctance to do business over the internet, which I can confirm, so I suppose this is most useful to those of us in the Baltimore/DC area or visiting it.

 

[gtdean48]

Welcome & thanks for the shop report....

 

[TomS]

Welcome! Thanks for the write-up on the shop!

 

[The Wiser Hatter]

What brands does he carry? Not keeping a website up in this day and age is not good for business. In fact it is really bad for business.

 

[H Weinstein]

I visited Hippodrome Hatters in Baltimore once last summer to buy a few spare satin hat liners. (The guy was very nice and didn't charge me an arm and a leg for them.) I suspect their primary customer base may be Baltimore's sizeable orthodox-Jewish population where formal fedoras are still part of the regular wardrobe. And, located in the heart of downtown, they may sell to inner-city residents as well. I think Hippodrome has been there a long time, so they may have a lot of repeat customers. They may feel that makes a major internet presence less important, even in this day and age.

 

[mayserwegener]

They sell mid to low end hats (Stetson, Dobbs, ect.). They also have their own brand made by I believe Bollman. The major customer base is inner city residents. I don't think they sell to Orthodox community. The guy also told me he really didn't need to have much of a presence online. He also told me they use to do hat blocking and repair but got out of that. By the way this is not the original location. They moved to the present location a while back. The building has a great facade but the retail space is a bit drab.

 

[The Wiser Hatter]

Ah,one of those Blocking and cleaning is too much trouble shop's. Nothing I would be interested in hope his current customers are happy.

 

[randomadam]

They also have their own brand made by I believe Bollman.

This sounds right; he told me the hat I purchased was made in Pennsylvania. It is more than serviceable, but doesn't seem finished quite as nicely as the Akubra I bought from hatsdirect.com before the Aussie dollar skyrocketed.

Thanks for the welcome, all!

 

[besdor]

Sounds like it was made by Bollman.