Your favorite hat marketing terms

[Lefty]

Sellers assume, maybe correctly so, that most of us can't tell the difference between a fino, sub-fino, super-fino, super-mega-ultra-fino-fino, etc.; so they just throw those terms around all over. It's great seeing something labeled "super fino" when you can tell even from the (blurry) photos that it has about 20 wpi... in fact it might have even been woven with those big bendy straws...

I can't tell the difference between any of those. AFAIK, those terms are as varying and unreliable as Xs.

 

[Alan-Eby]

I'd still like to see someone selling a Fake Shantung Hat or Artificial Straw Hat!

 

[scottyrocks]

"Vintage" is hard to determine in the collectible market, though. Certainly hats are almost never "antiques." That is a century old or more and most soft hats just don't survive that long. But vintage? What is it, really? Is a 70s fedora "vintage"? Most fedora collectors would end "vintage" with 1960 and later hats would be just an old hat, not a vintage hat to hardcore collectors. Many fedora aficionados would consider all mass manufactured hats (not customs) made after 1960 to be junk. Then again, if you are collecting Denim jeans hats, why 70s would be vintage!

I would not say any fedora made in the 80s, 90s, or 2000s is "vintage," but I guess we are pretty close to vintage for 70s and 60s. I mean, 1960 is already 50 years ago! 50 sound vintage to me!

Me, I have less problem with "vintage" than I do "rare"," as randooch said.

Anytime you see "rare" it is almost never correct.

I think 'vintage' works best with a decade before it, as '60s-vintage', for instance. 'Vintage' by itself means nothing when describing a particular item.