New Member to the Hat Forum

[belfastboy]

Just a thought, but perhaps you could contact Ultrafino to see if they could extend some kind of wholesale or bulk pricing for their box? They sell what appears to be a very nice hat box, with inserts. I just ordered one, and I can let you know what I think of it once it arrives. The single, retail price is $25. Or, maybe they can tell you the name of their supplier?

https://ultrafino.com/products/hatbox

I can have this custom made by a local box company for $12 -15 but the minimum buy is 100 - 200. At this point I don't want to tie up $1200 to $2500 in box inventory. I would rather put the funds into more felt stock. So I will continue to use the ULine boxes at $4 each 25 units per order and spend the 30 minutes making the insert.

 

[Ken Smith]

Welcome aboard! A lot of us started with a similar wool felt hat. Those hats are a great way to start into wearing a fedora without spending too much.

It’s a great site: hope you enjoy your stay.

Brent

Thank you, Brent. Village Hat Shop shipped it in a box with an insert so I was pleased that it didn't arrive in a bag.

 

[jviss]

I can have this custom made by a local box company for $12 -15 but the minimum buy is 100 - 200. At this point I don't want to tie up $1200 to $2500 in box inventory. I would rather put the funds into more felt stock. So I will continue to use the ULine boxes at $4 each 25 units per order and spend the 30 minutes making the insert.

And where would you put 100 to 200 hat boxes! . But, sounds like a good price, if you were making and selling enough hats to justify it.

 

[deadlyhandsome]

And where would you put 100 to 200 hat boxes! . But, sounds like a good price, if you were making and selling enough hats to justify it.

I’m doing my part to help Wolfbrae @belfastboy to qualify for the volume discounts.
Have you considered ordering a custom hat? It’s a lot of fun.

 

[belfastboy]

And where would you put 100 to 200 hat boxes! . But, sounds like a good price, if you were making and selling enough hats to justify it.

They sell them in the collapsed state so they don't take up much room. But also I need two sizes, a larger one to accommodate the wider brimmed hats. If I go over 35" total of L+W+H the cost of postage doubles. I like to buy a 12 month supply at one time...get it done. 100 to 125 is about a years supply of both sizes. To buy in smaller quantities I would just have to pass that extra cost on to the customer and at $25 is over 10% of the hat's cost. In order to keep my prices as reasonable as possible I need to keep my costs as low as possible.

 

[belfastboy]

I’m doing my part to help Wolfbrae @belfastboy to qualify for the volume discounts.
Have you considered ordering a custom hat? It’s a lot of fun.

This is not an exaggeration at all!

 

[jviss]

Have you considered ordering a custom hat?

You know, I never considered it until now, until you mentioned it. But I confess that I don't know what I would order. I'm still finding my way around hats with the vintage offerings: Fedoras and Homburgs. I'd really like a gray Homburg, but they are few and far between, and very pricey, it seems.

 

[deadlyhandsome]

You know, I never considered it until now, until you mentioned it. But I confess that I don't know what I would order. I'm still finding my way around hats with the vintage offerings: Fedoras and Homburgs. I'd really like a gray Homburg, but they are few and far between, and very pricey, it seems.

I love the vintage market, but customs are a hoot too. All you really need is a photo of the hat you want to replicate. I can endorse Wolfbrae as a great way to test the custom hat waters.

Homburgs are certainly out there and you’ll find a gray one with patience. They also often sell for less than fedoras.

 

[dragfree]

Good morning, y'all. Looks as if this is the appropriate thread to introduce myself as a new member. What I know about hats wouldn't fill a thimble, so I haven't much to offer here but expect I will learn a lot from your experience.

About me, in relation to hats:

As a former long-haired hippie freak weirdo, I never liked hats. They messed with my gloriously abundant head of hair. But by the time I turned 40, my hairline had receded so much that I started buzzing my hair off close to the scalp lest I look like one of those dudes trying to hide his shiny pate with a comb-over. That's when I started wearing hats to protect my head from the sun in warm weather and from the cold in winter. And though I had a few boonie hats and "cowboy" hats, for the most part I simply wore ball caps -- minimalist and cheap and not so heart-breaking when I left them behind in some restaurant or meeting place!

However, last year I had a chunk of one ear removed for squamous cell cancer and also suffered a round of topical chemotherapy to treat a few patches of actinic keratosis. And that led -- belatedly -- to replacing the ball caps with boonie hats and breaking the old Western-style lids out of storage. Turns out that moths had gotten to the fur felt hats and now they're sufficiently distressed that Stetson would charge a healthy premium for them!

So I started looking for a couple of new hats. Lo and behold, it turned out that the fascist assault on civil rights and our economy during the past two years has put two local shops out of business and made Stetsons almost impossible for the surviving Western wear shop to obtain. Thus I started hunting online -- and that led to discovering this forum. And thanks to you guys -- and some youtubers -- I ended up ordering a silver belly (sand?) Akubra Campdraft from Everything Australian, which expedited shipping got to my doorstep after only (!) 26 days, most of that time spent waiting at the Melbourne airport for a flight out of another once-free and once-liberal nation state.

Sigh. Better get 'em while we can.

I wasn't sure about the new hat when I first removed it from the box. It was a bit browner than Stetson's silver belly and the 59 cm size is looser than expected on my 58 1/2 cm head. But after putting a cattleman crease in the crown, tweaking the brim a bit, and shimming the sweatband judiciously, I love this hat! (See my profile pic if you're interested in how it turned out.)

I resisted ordering another in BGG almost immediately, but yesterday when I saw that David Morgan had the carbon grey Stylemaster in 59 cm, my resistance melted. Now I just have to get to work making a couple of hatbands to personalize both hats ... and perhaps persuading Stetson to ramp up production lest Akubra become the sole beneficiary of my new hat-buying obsession!

Cheers, y'all, and thanks for all the helpful info!

 

[belfastboy]

Good morning, y'all. Looks as if this is the appropriate thread to introduce myself as a new member. What I know about hats wouldn't fill a thimble, so I haven't much to offer here but expect I will learn a lot from your experience.

About me, in relation to hats:

As a former long-haired hippie freak weirdo, I never liked hats. They messed with my gloriously abundant head of hair. But by the time I turned 40, my hairline had receded so much that I started buzzing my hair off close to the scalp lest I look like one of those dudes trying to hide his shiny pate with a comb-over. That's when I started wearing hats to protect my head from the sun in warm weather and from the cold in winter. And though I had a few boonie hats and "cowboy" hats, for the most part I simply wore ball caps -- minimalist and cheap and not so heart-breaking when I left them behind in some restaurant or meeting place!

However, last year I had a chunk of one ear removed for squamous cell cancer and also suffered a round of topical chemotherapy to treat a few patches of actinic keratosis. And that led -- belatedly -- to replacing the ball caps with boonie hats and breaking the old Western-style lids out of storage. Turns out that moths had gotten to the fur felt hats and now they're sufficiently distressed that Stetson would charge a healthy premium for them!

So I started looking for a couple of new hats. Lo and behold, it turned out that the fascist assault on civil rights and our economy during the past two years has put two local shops out of business and made Stetsons almost impossible for the surviving Western wear shop to obtain. Thus I started hunting online -- and that led to discovering this forum. And thanks to you guys -- and some youtubers -- I ended up ordering a silver belly (sand?) Akubra Campdraft from Everything Australian, which expedited shipping got to my doorstep after only (!) 26 days, most of that time spent waiting at the Melbourne airport for a flight out of another once-free and once-liberal nation state.

Sigh. Better get 'em while we can.

I wasn't sure about the new hat when I first removed it from the box. It was a bit browner than Stetson's silver belly and the 59 cm size is looser than expected on my 58 1/2 cm head. But after putting a cattleman crease in the crown, tweaking the brim a bit, and shimming the sweatband judiciously, I love this hat! (See my profile pic if you're interested in how it turned out.)

I resisted ordering another in BGG almost immediately, but yesterday when I saw that David Morgan had the carbon grey Stylemaster in 59 cm, my resistance melted. Now I just have to get to work making a couple of hatbands to personalize both hats ... and perhaps persuading Stetson to ramp up production lest Akubra become the sole beneficiary of my new hat-buying obsession!

Cheers, y'all, and thanks for all the helpful info!

Welcome. You can't go wrong with an Akubra

 

[Frunobulax]

Good morning, y'all. Looks as if this is the appropriate thread to introduce myself as a new member. What I know about hats wouldn't fill a thimble, so I haven't much to offer here but expect I will learn a lot from your experience.

About me, in relation to hats:

As a former long-haired hippie freak weirdo, I never liked hats. They messed with my gloriously abundant head of hair. But by the time I turned 40, my hairline had receded so much that I started buzzing my hair off close to the scalp lest I look like one of those dudes trying to hide his shiny pate with a comb-over. That's when I started wearing hats to protect my head from the sun in warm weather and from the cold in winter. And though I had a few boonie hats and "cowboy" hats, for the most part I simply wore ball caps -- minimalist and cheap and not so heart-breaking when I left them behind in some restaurant or meeting place!

However, last year I had a chunk of one ear removed for squamous cell cancer and also suffered a round of topical chemotherapy to treat a few patches of actinic keratosis. And that led -- belatedly -- to replacing the ball caps with boonie hats and breaking the old Western-style lids out of storage. Turns out that moths had gotten to the fur felt hats and now they're sufficiently distressed that Stetson would charge a healthy premium for them!

So I started looking for a couple of new hats. Lo and behold, it turned out that the fascist assault on civil rights and our economy during the past two years has put two local shops out of business and made Stetsons almost impossible for the surviving Western wear shop to obtain. Thus I started hunting online -- and that led to discovering this forum. And thanks to you guys -- and some youtubers -- I ended up ordering a silver belly (sand?) Akubra Campdraft from Everything Australian, which expedited shipping got to my doorstep after only (!) 26 days, most of that time spent waiting at the Melbourne airport for a flight out of another once-free and once-liberal nation state.

Sigh. Better get 'em while we can.

I wasn't sure about the new hat when I first removed it from the box. It was a bit browner than Stetson's silver belly and the 59 cm size is looser than expected on my 58 1/2 cm head. But after putting a cattleman crease in the crown, tweaking the brim a bit, and shimming the sweatband judiciously, I love this hat! (See my profile pic if you're interested in how it turned out.)

I resisted ordering another in BGG almost immediately, but yesterday when I saw that David Morgan had the carbon grey Stylemaster in 59 cm, my resistance melted. Now I just have to get to work making a couple of hatbands to personalize both hats ... and perhaps persuading Stetson to ramp up production lest Akubra become the sole beneficiary of my new hat-buying obsession!

Cheers, y'all, and thanks for all the helpful info!

Welcome to the Lounge. Your choice of an Akubra is a good one, as you'll find they are tough old birds and make a great hat. You will also find that Akubras have a tendency to start out somewhat big and they will over time shrink a bit and conform to you. I received a new black one a few days prior to Christmas that fell down over my ears, but after some wear over the last couple of weeks is shaping up nice and comfortable. As an old long-hair hippie weirdo, you may remember shrink-to-fit Levis. Think of Akubras as the hat version of this.

One last note. The Fedora Lounge is a no politics zone. We stray sometimes when discussing subjects, but try to avoid the division talking politics entails. The Lounge is a respite from the rest of the internet, look at it that way. Additionally, we try to police our own, but if things go too far, a Bartender may step in and shake his/her finger at us to get back on track.

Again, welcome. You'll find a lot of information in some of these threads. It's a pretty fun group with some good folks.

 

[K5MOW]

Let me give it a try. This is my Optimo Silverbelly

very nice

Roger

 

[Samson25]

Please....Stop insulting "long-haired hippie freak weirdos" OK ?
I am a late bloomer, who left the baseball cap crowd behind at a tender 56 (?).
Awesome contributors/ posts will help you in defining your own particular style.
Welcome aboard !
p.s. Love my carbon Stylemaster- great hat !

Good morning, y'all. Looks as if this is the appropriate thread to introduce myself as a new member. What I know about hats wouldn't fill a thimble, so I haven't much to offer here but expect I will learn a lot from your experience.

About me, in relation to hats:

As a former long-haired hippie freak weirdo, I never liked hats. They messed with my gloriously abundant head of hair. But by the time I turned 40, my hairline had receded so much that I started buzzing my hair off close to the scalp lest I look like one of those dudes trying to hide his shiny pate with a comb-over. That's when I started wearing hats to protect my head from the sun in warm weather and from the cold in winter. And though I had a few boonie hats and "cowboy" hats, for the most part I simply wore ball caps -- minimalist and cheap and not so heart-breaking when I left them behind in some restaurant or meeting place!

However, last year I had a chunk of one ear removed for squamous cell cancer and also suffered a round of topical chemotherapy to treat a few patches of actinic keratosis. And that led -- belatedly -- to replacing the ball caps with boonie hats and breaking the old Western-style lids out of storage. Turns out that moths had gotten to the fur felt hats and now they're sufficiently distressed that Stetson would charge a healthy premium for them!

So I started looking for a couple of new hats. Lo and behold, it turned out that the fascist assault on civil rights and our economy during the past two years has put two local shops out of business and made Stetsons almost impossible for the surviving Western wear shop to obtain. Thus I started hunting online -- and that led to discovering this forum. And thanks to you guys -- and some youtubers -- I ended up ordering a silver belly (sand?) Akubra Campdraft from Everything Australian, which expedited shipping got to my doorstep after only (!) 26 days, most of that time spent waiting at the Melbourne airport for a flight out of another once-free and once-liberal nation state.

Sigh. Better get 'em while we can.

I wasn't sure about the new hat when I first removed it from the box. It was a bit browner than Stetson's silver belly and the 59 cm size is looser than expected on my 58 1/2 cm head. But after putting a cattleman crease in the crown, tweaking the brim a bit, and shimming the sweatband judiciously, I love this hat! (See my profile pic if you're interested in how it turned out.)

I resisted ordering another in BGG almost immediately, but yesterday when I saw that David Morgan had the carbon grey Stylemaster in 59 cm, my resistance melted. Now I just have to get to work making a couple of hatbands to personalize both hats ... and perhaps persuading Stetson to ramp up production lest Akubra become the sole beneficiary of my new hat-buying obsession!

Cheers, y'all, and thanks for all the helpful info!

 

[belfastboy]

Please....Stop insulting "long-haired hippie freak weirdos" OK ?
I am a late bloomer, who left the baseball cap crowd behind at a tender 56 (?).
You will learn alot here as I have since joining.
Awesome contributors/ posts will help you in defining your own particular style.
Welcome aboard !

Hell, I still have about 30 baseball caps that I still wear on knockabout days.

 

[Snowman]

Hell, I still have about 30 baseball caps that I still wear on knockabout days.

I don’t even have a count. Baseball caps were my precursor to fedoras. They’ve been almost like souvenir t-shirts - I picked one up everyone I went.

 

[belfastboy]

I don’t even have a count. Baseball caps were my precursor to fedoras. They’ve been almost like souvenir t-shirts - I picked one up everyone I went.

I had a massive collection of those that I gave away when we moved into a townhome. I have kept the fitted New Era & Roman Pro caps that I have collected since 1974. At least they don't take up much room!

 

[Norm DePlume]

Hello, all. I'm brand new here and will try not to be too obnoxious with my noobness. This seems to be an appropriate spot for "Hello, I'm brand new here" posts, so here goes. My backstory: I have a handful of decent quality hats and caps of other varieties, but am totally new to the whole "fine" fedora thing. The only fedora-adjacent hats I had up until recently are a pretty nice authentic panama from Ecuador and a wool Stetson made out of what they called Mello Felt. I actually love that Stetson. I've had it for probably 15 years and it looks and feels great on me and appears to be indestructible. But I realize that's not the caliber of lid this forum is about.

Anyway, recently I got this idea in my head out of nowhere that I wanted a classy gray fedora. So naturally I proceeded to buy three of them and am showing no signs of stopping. It's a problem I have with everything I get interested in, whether it's sneakers or vintage trumpets or whatever...like the old potato chip ads, can't eat just one. So I figured I would show them here and allow you to tell me what an idiot I was to acquire these.

First up is this Barbisio. It says Anello Zephyr on the sweat. I have no idea what that signifies and can't find anything via google. I mean, I know what a zephyr is and I know what anello means in Italian, but in the context of this hat, I'm clueless. As a noob, I don't have anything to compare it to, but this "seems" like an excellent hat. The felt is super soft and pliable. Almost too soft...I'm wondering if I should try to stiffen the brim a little to give it more snapability. Any insights or insults on that score are welcome. I made the rookie mistake of buying the smaller of the two sizes I'm in between, which I realize now is a bad idea when buying a used fedora. But in this case I got away with it; this 7-1/4 sits just fine on my nearly 7-3/8 dome, though maybe just a tad snugger than I would have preferred, but not bad at all. I might have overpaid for this one at 75 clams, but it's not an amount I'm going to lose sleep over as long as I like it and will wear it.

Next up is the one that surprised me. It's a Thoroughbred Pedigreed XXXXX. In contrast to the Barbisio, this one is quite stiff, but the felt feels very nice to the touch. They're calling it moleskin finish, whatever the hell that means. I've read through the threads that mention Thoroughbred and understand that it's not a premium brand. But I sure do like this hat. It's 7-3/8 and fits me well and is in excellent condition. No idea how old it is, maybe not very old at all. At 48 bucks, my gut says I got an okay deal on this one.

And finally, the one I shouldn't have bought and will try to find a new home for. In fact, I've already stuck it on ebay. I only bought it because I was mesmerized by the Borsalino name and it was pretty cheap at 30 bucks. But it's a 5-1/2 in the old French system, and unlike the Barbisio, this one isn't even close to fitting. I took a hat jack to it for a couple nights, and it did stretch some, but not nearly enough. And even if it had fit, I don't like the style. Way too stingy. Neither of the other two hats have particularly wide brims, but this one is in a different category entirely.

In closing, I'll just add that there used to be an okay hat shop in my town, Sacred Feather in Madison, WI, but they folded a few years ago, so I don't have anywhere convenient to go and check out good hats in person and pester the pros for information. I could shlep to Milwaukee, which has a good shop called Brass Rooster, but that's like an hour and a half drive from where I live and I'm a busy mofo. So I am pestering you instead.

And with that, there you have it, the sum total of my burgeoning collection. I think next I'll look for something along the lines of an Akubra Fed or Stylemaster, maybe a different color this time, something other than gray. That's it, I'm done. If you made it all the way to the end of this long-winded first post, I commend you. Flame away, comrades!

 

[Frunobulax]

Hello, all. I'm brand new here and will try not to be too obnoxious with my noobness. This seems to be an appropriate spot for "Hello, I'm brand new here" posts, so here goes. My backstory: I have a handful of decent quality hats and caps of other varieties, but am totally new to the whole "fine" fedora thing. The only fedora-adjacent hats I had up until recently are a pretty nice authentic panama from Ecuador and a wool Stetson made out of what they called Mello Felt. I actually love that Stetson. I've had it for probably 15 years and it looks and feels great on me and appears to be indestructible. But I realize that's not the caliber of lid this forum is about.

Anyway, recently I got this idea in my head out of nowhere that I wanted a classy gray fedora. So naturally I proceeded to buy three of them and am showing no signs of stopping. It's a problem I have with everything I get interested in, whether it's sneakers or vintage trumpets or whatever...like the old potato chip ads, can't eat just one. So I figured I would show them here and allow you to tell me what an idiot I was to acquire these.

First up is this Barbisio. It says Anello Zephyr on the sweat. I have no idea what that signifies and can't find anything via google. I mean, I know what a zephyr is and I know what anello means in Italian, but in the context of this hat, I'm clueless. As a noob, I don't have anything to compare it to, but this "seems" like an excellent hat. The felt is super soft and pliable. Almost too soft...I'm wondering if I should try to stiffen the brim a little to give it more snapability. Any insights or insults on that score are welcome. I made the rookie mistake of buying the smaller of the two sizes I'm in between, which I realize now is a bad idea when buying a used fedora. But in this case I got away with it; this 7-1/4 sits just fine on my nearly 7-3/8 dome, though maybe just a tad snugger than I would have preferred, but not bad at all. I might have overpaid for this one at 75 clams, but it's not an amount I'm going to lose sleep over as long as I like it and will wear it.

View attachment 395887

Next up is the one that surprised me. It's a Thoroughbred Pedigreed XXXXX. In contrast to the Barbisio, this one is quite stiff, but the felt feels very nice to the touch. They're calling it moleskin finish, whatever the hell that means. I've read through the threads that mention Thoroughbred and understand that it's not a premium brand. But I sure do like this hat. It's 7-3/8 and fits me well and is in excellent condition. No idea how old it is, maybe not very old at all. At 48 bucks, my gut says I got an okay deal on this one.

View attachment 395888

And finally, the one I shouldn't have bought and will try to find a new home for. In fact, I've already stuck it on ebay. I only bought it because I was mesmerized by the Borsalino name and it was pretty cheap at 30 bucks. But it's a 5-1/2 in the old French system, and unlike the Barbisio, this one isn't even close to fitting. I took a hat jack to it for a couple nights, and it did stretch some, but not nearly enough. And even if it had fit, I don't like the style. Way too stingy. Neither of the other two hats have particularly wide brims, but this one is in a different category entirely.

View attachment 395890

In closing, I'll just add that there used to be an okay hat shop in my town, Sacred Feather in Madison, WI, but they folded a few years ago, so I don't have anywhere convenient to go and check out good hats in person and pester the pros for information. I could shlep to Milwaukee, which has a good shop called Brass Rooster, but that's like an hour and a half drive from where I live and I'm a busy mofo. So I am pestering you instead.

And with that, there you have it, the sum total of my burgeoning collection. I think next I'll look for something along the lines of an Akubra Fed or Stylemaster, maybe a different color this time, something other than gray. That's it, I'm done. If you made it all the way to the end of this long-winded first post, I commend you. Flame away, comrades!

Welcome to the party, pal! It seems you're on your way down the rabbit hole. It's a fun trip. All seem to be fairly nice hats, and your assessment of them is pretty accurate. Most hats that use the "Zephyr" designation do so to highlight how lightweight they are. Moleskin refers to a type pf nice, smooth finish.

 

[belfastboy]

A fine start to your collection. Welcome to The Lounge, a great group of committed enablers!

 

[StoryPNW]

Hello, all. I'm brand new here and will try not to be too obnoxious with my noobness. This seems to be an appropriate spot for "Hello, I'm brand new here" posts, so here goes. My backstory: I have a handful of decent quality hats and caps of other varieties, but am totally new to the whole "fine" fedora thing. The only fedora-adjacent hats I had up until recently are a pretty nice authentic panama from Ecuador and a wool Stetson made out of what they called Mello Felt. I actually love that Stetson. I've had it for probably 15 years and it looks and feels great on me and appears to be indestructible. But I realize that's not the caliber of lid this forum is about.

Anyway, recently I got this idea in my head out of nowhere that I wanted a classy gray fedora. So naturally I proceeded to buy three of them and am showing no signs of stopping. It's a problem I have with everything I get interested in, whether it's sneakers or vintage trumpets or whatever...like the old potato chip ads, can't eat just one. So I figured I would show them here and allow you to tell me what an idiot I was to acquire these.

First up is this Barbisio. It says Anello Zephyr on the sweat. I have no idea what that signifies and can't find anything via google. I mean, I know what a zephyr is and I know what anello means in Italian, but in the context of this hat, I'm clueless. As a noob, I don't have anything to compare it to, but this "seems" like an excellent hat. The felt is super soft and pliable. Almost too soft...I'm wondering if I should try to stiffen the brim a little to give it more snapability. Any insights or insults on that score are welcome. I made the rookie mistake of buying the smaller of the two sizes I'm in between, which I realize now is a bad idea when buying a used fedora. But in this case I got away with it; this 7-1/4 sits just fine on my nearly 7-3/8 dome, though maybe just a tad snugger than I would have preferred, but not bad at all. I might have overpaid for this one at 75 clams, but it's not an amount I'm going to lose sleep over as long as I like it and will wear it.

View attachment 395887

Next up is the one that surprised me. It's a Thoroughbred Pedigreed XXXXX. In contrast to the Barbisio, this one is quite stiff, but the felt feels very nice to the touch. They're calling it moleskin finish, whatever the hell that means. I've read through the threads that mention Thoroughbred and understand that it's not a premium brand. But I sure do like this hat. It's 7-3/8 and fits me well and is in excellent condition. No idea how old it is, maybe not very old at all. At 48 bucks, my gut says I got an okay deal on this one.

View attachment 395888

And finally, the one I shouldn't have bought and will try to find a new home for. In fact, I've already stuck it on ebay. I only bought it because I was mesmerized by the Borsalino name and it was pretty cheap at 30 bucks. But it's a 5-1/2 in the old French system, and unlike the Barbisio, this one isn't even close to fitting. I took a hat jack to it for a couple nights, and it did stretch some, but not nearly enough. And even if it had fit, I don't like the style. Way too stingy. Neither of the other two hats have particularly wide brims, but this one is in a different category entirely.

View attachment 395890

In closing, I'll just add that there used to be an okay hat shop in my town, Sacred Feather in Madison, WI, but they folded a few years ago, so I don't have anywhere convenient to go and check out good hats in person and pester the pros for information. I could shlep to Milwaukee, which has a good shop called Brass Rooster, but that's like an hour and a half drive from where I live and I'm a busy mofo. So I am pestering you instead.

And with that, there you have it, the sum total of my burgeoning collection. I think next I'll look for something along the lines of an Akubra Fed or Stylemaster, maybe a different color this time, something other than gray. That's it, I'm done. If you made it all the way to the end of this long-winded first post, I commend you. Flame away, comrades!

Nice hats, welcome! I'm pretty new to the game too but there is lots of good information on here. Plenty of fuel to keep you buying more too.