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Gotta 3X Beaver Longhorn Western off the block. It's still sitting until I figure out what I want to do with it, this hat is really, really, orange!
It started out as a size 7 1/8 and I blocked it up to a size 7 1/4 on my special made custom RA block. The sides on this hat are completely vertical all around after blocking with an open crown height of 5 3/4 inches...
Before:
Stripped down and ready for the block:
On the RA block:
Off the block, brim ironed and trimmed and ready to be put together:
As far as my assessment of the quality of Longhorn hats, they're really not much different than any other Western hat maker of its era. They're pretty much what one would expect, stiff and thick felted, although the sweat on this one was pretty cheesy, and like other hat manufacturers of its era, it's nowhere near the quality of older vintage hats, ('50s and pre '50s). Basically, if you come across one of these at a decent price, I wouldn't be afraid to buy one, (at a decent price, that is).
In my opinion, when it comes to Western hats of this era, (and I've worked on quite a few), Resistols are of better quality than the rest, and that includes Stetson not being equal in quality to Resistol.
You weren’t kidding: that hat is ORANGE!