carouselvic
I'll Lock Up
- Messages
- 4,982
- Location
- Kansas
Is it me or does that hat in the ad look like it has a moth divot midway between bow center & side dent?
Is it me or does that hat in the ad look like it has a moth divot midway between bow center & side dent?
Too funny! I actually reached up and wiped my screen with an index finger to make sure. lolIs it me or does that hat in the ad look like it has a moth divot midway between bow center & side dent?
Did the same with a microfiber cloth Randall!!!!!Too funny! I actually reached up and wiped my screen with an index finger to make sure. lol
I wondered if they were vent holes.
So, a couple of weeks ago, I engaged in the dangerous game of bidding while under the influence, and won an old Dobbs with a sketchy description and a single photo that showed a battered hat with a faded band, but healthy-looking felt. I took a chance, won the auction, and took delivery last Friday.
What arrived was a battered, but very interesting hat with light, pliable felt. The brown sweatband is stamped "Dobbs VVL." "Guild Edge and "Gilbert's" (presumably, the store where it was sold).
The brim is 2 3/8 inches, with a crown that, when open, is just over 5 inches and a 2-inch hat band that was once black (still visible on the reverse side), but was now whatever the intersection of black, brown and dingy is.
Interesting, but what had I bought?
OK, I could have asked you Dobbs experts. But that felt like cheating. So I did some Googling, and found a few old advertisements in the archives of The New Yorker. This one, from March 19, 1955:
Sorry about the resolution. If you can't read that, the text says, "The famous Dobbs VVL, the finest lightweight hat ever made is now available in the newest Spring shades with the famous Guild Edge. $20. and $40."
So I had a really lightweight hat, the Dobbs Very Very Light, dating no earlier than 1955 (because of the Guild Edge). Perfect for Arizona. But it needed work.
So I broke out the naptha and gave the hat a bath and a scrub. I steamed the hat back to a reasonable facsimile of an open crown. I gave the crunchy sweatband several doses of leather conditioner.
And I took the plunge and snipped off that faded hatband and dyed it back to black. Then I sewed the hatband back on. (That sounds easy, doesn't it? Actually, "sewed the hatband back on" conceals about two hours of frustrating needlework. Let's have a shout-out to the long-gone junior high school paper-pushers who made me take home economics.)
The end result, was a hat looking a lot fresher than it had out of the box, and rather less ... infectious.
Then, I gave it some shape.
And actually put the thing on.
I'm not completely satisfied with the job I did on the hatband, but I can live with it -- especially since it's probably the best I can do right now.
And it turns out that this is really a nice hat. It's light weight-wise -- 3.4 ounces, about half-an-ounce lighter than anything else I own. But it also feels light as in wearable on a warm Arizona day. The felt takes any shape you please without a fuss, though it moves out of that shape easy enough too.
I see the new acquisition joining the regular rotation.
Does anybody have more information on the Dobbs VVL?
So, as far as dates, we have at least 1955 to at least 1963. If I learn more from the hat itself, I will add to this thread.
John Galt