vintage panama hat finds from Monte Cristi Hat Works of Santa Fe, N.M.

[julie-tom]

I recently picked up several Monte Cristi panama hats, from Milton Johnson's "Monte Cristi Hat Works" of Santa Fe, N.M.
I'm hoping to get some input as to the likely age of these hats, and also some intel on the pencil markings on the straw, located under the sweat-band around back.

The finer of the two hats (the curly brim) has around 6+ stitches to the 1/4", so I'm guessing that the "25" penciled in on the straw refers to a weave of 25 weave count/inch? The second number is "395" and perhaps refers to Milton's original selling or purchase price?

The second Panama hat has around 5 stitches to the 1/4". It has several pencil markings on the straw: "20" would be the weave count/inch; "200" is perhaps the selling or purchase price; "7 1/2" which might have been a size measurement???; and finally "8020" which completely baffles me as to it's meaning.

Interestingly, there was a third hat in this collection which is a "Resistol xDOUBLEx Western Fedora" (looks like an Stetson Open Road), which is a fawn colored felt fedora, that also has the "Monte Cristi Santa Fe" logo on the Sweatband. This Resistol looks like late 60s-early 1970s.

 

[julie-tom]

Click on the images, and they expand to a larger size....
Thanks for any input regarding these hats.

 

[barrowjh]

Prefaced with acknowledgement that I am an amateur at this, these two appear to be llano weave Montecristi panamas at Fino (400 WPSI) or a step below that. Color appears reasonably consistent, edges appear nicely backwoven, and the wide brims are a lot of woven real estate. Retail today? I'm thinking $500+ but they could also fetch less than $200 because the wide brims are not in tune with the pop culture today. If you were commissioning these hats, I think you are in the $500+ market to achieve the apparent quality and quantity of weave.