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[Judgmentalist]

Mine was a custom someone I guess had made as a Dr Who tribute.

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I like your bow better than mine. I’m wearing the red today and I don’t have a problem with it. A little color doesn’t hurt my feelings, it just wouldn’t have been my first choice. It really is nice to have a straw hat to keep the sun off your head and out of your eyes. Why did people stop wearing hats lol

 

[wsmontana]

PHD Montecristi.

I like the hat body fine. I suspect I don't know enough about the rest of the finishing to disapprove, with one exception.

As expected, I hate, hate, despise the fact that PHD glues their ribbons on.

I wanted a PHD hat I could hold in my hands so I could decide for myself, and I'm glad I have it. I may prevail upon a kind-hearted hat maker to replace the ribbon and otherwise spruce this thing up at some point, but it's not a priority.

I didn't care for the red ribbon, and I don't particularly care for this ribbon form factor, although that may be partially impacted by the fact that I can see the glue holding it in place. I'm not sure if this ribbon style has a name.

Nothing against the lovely eBayer that sold me this hat - the hat is exactly as described, and exactly what I expected. Now when someone asks about PHD hats - I can honestly say "I like the hat bodies fine; not a fan of the finishing." Objective complete. I'll wear it out this weekend.

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Yes, the trim and finish work from PHD is not the best and I have found that they tend to use glue to tack down liners and hat bands. I’ve been able to use a hair dryer to heat up their globs of glue to remove liners and replace hat bands. There might be some residual glue but it gets covered as long as you keep the ribbon width the same or larger. Good luck!

 

[steur]

J. Hückel´s Söhne "Plume", 59 cm, possibly mid to late 1930s. The weight of the entire hat is 58 grams so about 2 ounces! The Off White Smooth Finish Felt is tissue like so super pliable, and there are triangular Vents on the sides of the taller Crown . It has a Thin Ribbon with a sharp looking Bow design. The Sweat Band is made of Fabric, possibly to reduce weight. I have only seen this once before from JHS and it was a Women's Stiff Felt. Whoever owned this Soft Felt wore it hard in the Summer because there are sweat issues to the Sweatband and Band / Bow. This is definitely one of my better + interesting recent finds.

The Paper Label doesn't have JHS but based on the numbers it's definitely JHS.

Open Crown

Natural Light

58 Grams ~ 2.0 Ounces

C. Louis Weber Hannover Geogr.str 17 (1937)

Always Impeccably Dressed

Ladies' and Men's Fashion, Furs, uniforms

by C. Louis Weber, The House of Fine Clothing, Hanover 1862-1937, Georgstr. 17

Stellar find, Steve. Love everything about it. Mind boggling to think how much skill it required to make these super lightweight hats.

 

[wsmontana]

J. Hückel´s Söhne "Plume", 59 cm, possibly mid to late 1930s. The weight of the entire hat is 58 grams so about 2 ounces! The Off White Smooth Finish Felt is tissue like so super pliable, and there are triangular Vents on the sides of the taller Crown . It has a Thin Ribbon with a sharp looking Bow design. The Sweat Band is made of Fabric, possibly to reduce weight. I have only seen this once before from JHS and it was a Women's Stiff Felt. Whoever owned this Soft Felt wore it hard in the Summer because there are sweat issues to the Sweatband and Band / Bow. This is definitely one of my better + interesting recent finds.

The Paper Label doesn't have JHS but based on the numbers it's definitely JHS.

Open Crown

Natural Light

58 Grams ~ 2.0 Ounces

C. Louis Weber Hannover Geogr.str 17 (1937)

Always Impeccably Dressed

Ladies' and Men's Fashion, Furs, uniforms

by C. Louis Weber, The House of Fine Clothing, Hanover 1862-1937, Georgstr. 17

Wow, that is a beauty — I have a 70g Borsalino and I can’t imagine a hat being 12g lighter

 

[mayserwegener]

What a fantastic find.

Joe, Thank you! I was very surprised + happy to find it!

 

[mayserwegener]

Stellar find, Steve. Love everything about it. Mind boggling to think how much skill it required to make these super lightweight hats.

Stefan, Thanks! The Felt is so thin it's hard to believe.

 

[Judgmentalist]

I got a couple Goodwill Sovereigns in today. From the same store, so I saved a couple bucks on shipping. Both 59s, one fits pretty well, the other could use a little stretch maybe.

 

[Judgmentalist]

Big day around here. First up, my first ever flat caps. Hats number 3 and 4 from @wsmontana , thank you sir. I feel like I should be working at a printing press. Or a factory. Or a printing press factory. I'm gonna play some Billy Joel.

One Stetson, silk and cashmere, nice and lightweight for the weather, and the other is Wigens, Swedish, tweed.

 

[jeffgarf]

Big day around here. First up, my first ever flat caps. Hats number 3 and 4 from @wsmontana , thank you sir. I feel like I should working at a printing press. Or a factory. Or a printing press factory. I'm gonna play some Billy Joel.

One Stetson, silk and cashmere, nice and lightweight for the weather, and the other is Wigens, Swedish, tweed.

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Looking for one just like that Stetson for my son-in-law. Very nice.

 

[Judgmentalist]

next, my first ever honest-to-god Cowboy hat from Goodwill. First ever Cattleman's crease, first ever mule kick. This one is out of my line but I'm happy to have it - it will come in handy when I get my mini-highlands. I'm gonna need to get a separate hat brush if I keep getting hats from Goodwill lol.

Rodeo King - gonna see what I can do about flattening the brim.

 

[wsmontana]

Big day around here. First up, my first ever flat caps. Hats number 3 and 4 from @wsmontana , thank you sir. I feel like I should be working at a printing press. Or a factory. Or a printing press factory. I'm gonna play some Billy Joel.

One Stetson, silk and cashmere, nice and lightweight for the weather, and the other is Wigens, Swedish, tweed.

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Big day around here. First up, my first ever flat caps. Hats number 3 and 4 from @wsmontana , thank you sir. I feel like I should be working at a printing press. Or a factory. Or a printing press factory. I'm gonna play some Billy Joel.

One Stetson, silk and cashmere, nice and lightweight for the weather, and the other is Wigens, Swedish, tweed.

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More than happy to be a supplier to your HAS — lots of loungers including myself continue to feed the beast lol.

https://www.thefedoralounge.com/threads/what-hat-are-you-wearing-today.94860/post-3140703

Bonus that we are the same size and I can rotate my supply lol

 

[Judgmentalist]

PHD Montecristi.

I like the hat body fine. I suspect I don't know enough about the rest of the finishing to disapprove, with one exception.

As expected, I hate, hate, despise the fact that PHD glues their ribbons on.

I wanted a PHD hat I could hold in my hands so I could decide for myself, and I'm glad I have it. I may prevail upon a kind-hearted hat maker to replace the ribbon and otherwise spruce this thing up at some point, but it's not a priority.

I didn't care for the red ribbon, and I don't particularly care for this ribbon form factor, although that may be partially impacted by the fact that I can see the glue holding it in place. I'm not sure if this ribbon style has a name.

Nothing against the lovely eBayer that sold me this hat - the hat is exactly as described, and exactly what I expected. Now when someone asks about PHD hats - I can honestly say "I like the hat bodies fine; not a fan of the finishing." Objective complete. I'll wear it out this weekend.

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Got my ribbons from PHD today, and took the red silk ribbon off of this PHD. Unfortunately because I have the foresight of a lobotomized goldfish, I ordered ribbons that are more narrow than what was there before. So now I am waiting for more ribbons to arrive, should be about two weeks or so.

So, I pulled the red ribbon off. from what I can tell they use a staple to hold that little deco detail together and hot glue the ribbon to the hat. There is the usual (lack of)discoloration where the previous ribbon protected it from the sun, but it isn't very obvious in my photo. I will do a little more work on cleaning up the existing glue.

If anyone wants to comment on the quality of the stitching visible behind the ribbon, feel free.

Matter of fact, at the risk of being sacrilegious - @belfastboy - can you make me a cool ribbon and toss in with the next box and tack it onto my bill? If you are willing to participate, let me know, but just pick something fun, please and thank you.

Anything you can do for me will be a million times cooler than the ribbons I can get from PHD.

 

[belfastboy]

Got my ribbons from PHD today, and took the red silk ribbon off of this PHD. Unfortunately because I have the foresight of a lobotomized goldfish, I ordered ribbons that are more narrow than what was there before. So now I am waiting for more ribbons to arrive, should be about two weeks or so.

So, I pulled the red ribbon off. from what I can tell they use a staple to hold that little deco detail together and hot glue the ribbon to the hat. There is the usual (lack of)discoloration where the previous ribbon protected it from the sun, but it isn't very obvious in my photo. I will do a little more work on cleaning up the existing glue.

If anyone wants to comment on the quality of the stitching visible behind the ribbon, feel free.

Matter of fact, at the risk of being sacrilegious - @belfastboy - can you make me a cool ribbon and toss in with the next box and tack it onto my bill? If you are willing to participate, let me know, but just pick something fun, please and thank you.

Anything you can do for me will be a million times cooler than the ribbons I can get from PHD.


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I thought PHD had upped their game since I purchased a hat from them. Cheap cheap ribbons attached with staples and glue is just so not acceptable. Do they still use cheap cloth sweat bands? I make two piece bows and are not easily attached to the hat without some sewing skills. You might be better served to order a colourful puggaree off Ebay. They attach easily with hooks.
What quality of weave did you buy?

 

[Judgmentalist]

I thought PHD had upped their game since I purchased a hat from them. Cheap cheap ribbons attached with staples and glue is just so not acceptable. Do they still use cheap cloth sweat bands? I make two piece bows and are not easily attached to the hat without some sewing skills. You might be better served to order a colourful puggaree off Ebay. They attach easily with hooks.
What quality of weave did you buy?

I got this one from @wsmontana - not sure the quality - but yes, the ribbon work leaves much to be desired - ah well it was a thought

 

[wsmontana]

I got this one from @wsmontana - not sure the quality - but yes, the ribbon work leaves much to be desired - ah well it was a thought

I’m not the original owner but I believe this was made by PHD sometime between 2010 and 2015. The trim work is definitely subpar.

 

[Judgmentalist]

I’m not the original owner but I believe this was made by PHD sometime between 2010 and 2015. The trim work is definitely subpar.

Love the hat body though though - very happy to have it - I’ll get the ribbon sorted

 

[Judgmentalist]

James Oviatt was born in 1888 and died in 1974. He commissioned the construction of what would later become known as the Oviatt Building, which housed the Oviatt Haberdashery from its opening until it closed in 1969. Oviatt and his wife lived in the penthouse suite there until their deaths in 1974 and 1975.

This hat must have been produced and originally sold sometime before the haberdashery closed in 1969. I bought it partly because I found the provenance fascinating, but also because it is probably the most finely woven Montecristi hat I will ever personally handle. The damaged areas in the weave made it affordable enough for me to justify as both an educational piece and an object d’art. I also wanted the opportunity to experience a hat of this WPI firsthand so I could better understand how much I personally value extremely high weave counts.

I bought a few tools on Amazon to help with measuring it, and I’m going to try to get an accurate WPI count tomorrow. Once I do, I’ll post the results in reply to this thread.

This hat may ultimately save me far more money than it cost. People often describe higher-WPI hats as feeling like linen. This hat is definitely a different animal from my PHD, but to me it feels more like paper than linen. Perhaps the weave count simply isn’t high enough to enter that “linen-like” category. Maybe I’ll find out tomorrow. Either way, I don’t think I personally need to spend the kind of money required to acquire a hat of this WPI—unless I happen across an exceptional deal on the secondary market for one that actually fits me.

This is now the third Montecristi I’ve owned that I can’t wear. I gave one to a good friend, one to my wife, and now I have this one as more of an educational artifact.

I’m going to send it to Brent Black and see if he’d be willing to take a look at it. At the very least, I’d like to hear his opinion. If he’s willing to risk attempting a reblock, I may see whether he can turn it into something my wife would actually wear. I don’t think she’ll be much of a fan of the Optimo style, but we’ll see.

 

[Judgmentalist]

Ladies and Gentlemen, I finally have a bowler. This the hat that started me down this dark path. I tried on a bowler at the hat store in Charleston one day about 20 years ago and thought "how about that - a hat I don't hate" but I didn't buy one because my wife didn't think I'd actually wear it. Twenty years later here we are. And my wife probably still won't let me wear it lol.

I got this one from Goodwill.

Burton-Taylor "Consul" bowler - 7 3/8" and it actually fits me, believe it or not.

If anybody can tell me anything about "Klopfenstein's" "Crownette", the United Hatters label, the reorder tag, and so on, please do.

I think it's from somewhere in the late 40s-50's, maybe early 60's, but I'm not sure. I'm going to dig into it a little more.

 

[Rmccamey]

Very nice, indeed! Based on the sweatband bow and the b*u*t*t joint, I'd say it is a pre-war hat; perhaps 1930s.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I finally have a bowler. This the hat that started me down this dark path. I tried on a bowler at the hat store in Charleston one day about 20 years ago and thought "how about that - a hat I don't hate" but I didn't buy one because my wife didn't think I'd actually wear it. Twenty years later here we are. And my wife probably still won't let me wear it lol.

I got this one from Goodwill.

Burton-Taylor "Consul" bowler - 7 3/8" and it actually fits me, believe it or not.

If anybody can tell me anything about "Klopfenstein's" "Crownette", the United Hatters label, the reorder tag, and so on, please do.

I think it's from somewhere in the late 40s-50's, maybe early 60's, but I'm not sure. I'm going to dig into it a little more.

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[Judgmentalist]

Awesome, thank you. That would make it my oldest and most actually vintage hat.