Stetson Cowboy Hats

-By Warner Todd Huston

Hats are often impossible to date in exact terms. Once in a while there is an actual ink stamp on the inside of a leather sweatband telling us the date the hat was made or sold but this is very rare. Sometimes there is an original receipt from when the hat was purchased. This is also rare and maybe a bit unreliable because, after all, the receipt could have come from any where and it’s hard to be sure it was actually for the hat it is with. Even less reliable is family lore on when a hat was purchased (so few people know anything about hats that this is a highly unreliable method of dating). Other times we know through hat company advertisements that a particular, marked model was only sold during a specific time period. But usually one can only make an educated guess based on when particular models were introduced taken with the various manufacturing methods used on the hat. This criteria usually can only give you about a 10-year period into which the hat’s manufacture date could fit.

Welcome searchers of history and information about men’s hats, fedoras, top hats, derbies and bowlers, and, more specifically, Stetson history. If you’ve landed on this page, chances are you found us through a Google search as our pages now rank on the very first page for most search questions on hat history. For that we are shocked and grateful.

One of the reasons you found us, though, is because information on hats is not just hard to find, it is very, very hard to find. But on these pages you’ll find much of what you need to know and resources to look elsewhere for other great info, too.

A Glossary of Hat Terms, Words, Definitions, And Styles

All the hat terms you need to know to understand the world of hats and hat wearing.

Stetson Quality Designations, Just
What Do Those Xs Mean, Anyway?

Everyone wants to know what the heck Stetson means by those “genuine” Xs. Here we endeavor to answer that question.

Observations on Fedora Sweatbands,
Size Tags, and Fedora Dating Tips

Wherein we help you date your Stetson using the tags noted.

Dating Stetsons by Company Crests,
Stetson Logos and Hat Liners

Because the Stetson logo changed only a finite number of times, here you’ll find yet another way to help date your Stetson.

Dating Stetson Hats By Inventory Tag

These tags are another of the many ways to track down a date of a Stetson hat.

A Tour of My Collection of Antique Stetson Western Hats

This fascinating page has detailed photos of Stetson cowboy hat collection. These hats were made from the late 1800s, through the 1900s.

So… What’s the Deal With Those Stetson Hats, Huston?

This is an interesting walk through my personal collection of antique fedoras. Please enjoy the journey.

And now on with Dating Stetson Hats By Inventory Tag…

Collectors have the most information on Stetsons but even that is hard to pin down. The following is what collectors know so far about dating a Stetson. This information is always changing as collectors are finding out more and more and newer vintage examples come to light.

Now, one way to date your Stetson hat is by re-order (“To Duplicate”) and inventory tags. Dating Stetsons by inventory, style and sizing, or re-order number tags might only give you a general set of dates of not more than a decade or two, but taking note of these inventory tags can give you a general idea of the era in which your hat was made. As with all dating systems for Stetsons, exact, to the year dating is nearly impossible simply because Stetson’s records have long since been destroyed.

The idea with these tags was that you could re-order your favorite hat style simply by telling Stetson what your tag said. On that tag is a style number, a block number, and a size, etc. With this innovative system a customer never had to guess what sort of hat he had and never had to be forced to try a new style when his old hat wore out. If he liked the type of hat he had he could get it replaced with one exactly like it. Customer service was the word of the day!

These tags had other uses, too. It was also a way for Stetson to keep track of what was going on in the factory. The tags helped track what hats sold the most and where they were in the manufacturing process.

I think Stetson introduced this system in the late 1800s and it wasn’t long before every hat manufacturer had some sort of inventory tag of its own.

Whether on a Stetson tag or on that of another hat maker, some of the information on these tags were crown depth, hat size, blocking number, finish style, sometimes even color appeared on them (but not often). And, of course, the name of the hat company and sometimes its address were also on these tags.

Where can you find these tags?

On Stetsons there were two of these stickers glued to the felt behind the sweatband, at the back of the hat.

This is the inside of the hat. Follow the arrow and look behind the sweatband for the tags

What do they look like?

Here is what it looks like when you turn down the leather sweatband

WARNING

Now, be very, very careful when you turn that sweatband down. On older hats the sweatband stitching can be very delicate. Turning down that leather in a rough manner can easily result in the stitching breaking apart of the leather cracking. If you are afraid of damaging the hat, just take a peek behind that leather. If the hat is in great shape, though, go ahead and turn it out.

But be aware that a leather sweatband is NOT made to be constantly flipped in and out of the hat. Hatters may suggest that the sweat be turned out when drying a modern, newly made hat, but this is NOT a good habit on vintage hats for the reason noted above. A leather sweatband is generally manufactured to stay flipped inward to hold the proper shape of the hat opening but the bigger problem is age. It is not usually safe to flip sweatbands in and out on an older hat. So, once you see your reorder and size tags, best to take a photo of them and then never flip that sweatband out again if you can help it!

Reorder, Size, and Finish Tag Styles and Dating

Late in the 1800s Stetson instituted a great idea for customer relations. You see, in those days, a hat was quite an important part of a man’s personal style. Once he found a hat style he liked, he usually tried to stay with that as long as possible. Hats weren’t incidental in those days. A man was making a personal statement with his hat.

So, Stetson implemented a way for a man to replace his favorite hat with exactly the same style as his lost or worn out hat. To do that Stetson created a “to duplicate” tag with a number on it. The number told Stetson what sort of hat was being requested so that when a man re-ordered his hat he’d get the exact model he wanted with the same style, same brim width, etc. The ultimate in customer service.

This reorder system lasted from the late 1800s to about 1960 when Stetson finally dropped the service. The separate re-order tag seemed to appear in a myriad of different versions. The first was a brown tag that was almost square–but not quite–and lasted to sometime in the mid to late 1920s. Then came a second version in orange. Finally came an orange version that was a bit more rectangular than the second. But there were several other types, to.

Early Stetsons had the “to duplicate” information on the same tag as the sizing and blocking info. It is possible that Stetson used both the black tag and the separate brown “to duplicate” tag concurrently. But it wasn’t for long, for sure.

Still, it is currently unknown just when Stetson started using paper tags inside hats to denote size, style, reorder numbers and block and crown depths. The earliest tag I have seen is from somewhere between the 1870s and 1900. Stetsons from between 1865 and 1890 are, well, like finding hen’s teeth, so it isn’t real common to see what sort of tags they used prior to 1900. In any case, Stetson seems to have had well over a dozen different tags that all appeared in certain eras.

Stetson’s earliest known tag (as least to me) is this one. This tag was found in an 1880s-style American police hat with a metal pin that has”SLP” surrounded by a wreath on its front (maybe St. Louis Police). This English Bobby-like police hat was popular in American cities until the early 1900s when they went out of fashion for our police departments.

This one is similar to the one above, but has the categories moved around a bit. This was found in a bowler with a liner sporting Stetson’s 1889 medal winnings. So, it was made between 1889 and 1900

Stetson’s early black tag, late 1800s to sometime in the 1920s. The black and white tag is often seen on bowlers. Note how the “to duplicate” information was part of the same tag in this early iteration, too.

This one has only been seen a handful of times. It perhaps from the 1900s or as late as 1920. This was found in a bowler.

Here is another alternate version, this one also a rare sighting. Again it is unknown how long this one was used.

Early in the 1900s, perhaps as early as the 1910s, Stetson began to separate the re-order tags.

Separate Reorder Tag Styles and Dating

Ultimately, Stetson used the two separate tags from sometime in the 1920s all the way until about 1950 or so when they went to the white tag seen below.

Stetson’s early brown re-order or “to duplicate” tag. This tag went from about the 1900s to somewhere in the late 1920s. This one was mostly gone by the mid to late 20s but some stocks of them were still being used up.

Stetson’s early alternate “to duplicate” tag. This tag came to light recently from collectors at the Fedora Lounge website and seems to be from the 1900s to 1920s or so. It is either the brownish color of the early tag or the orange color of the later tag surrounded by a plain paper border with accents. Not many of these have been seen so it is unknown how often it was used.

Another alternate version of the brown tag same dates as above.

Here is another shot of the alternate tag as above from a different hat, only this one is showing how the re-order number would have been printed on the tag. This is from a 1900 Paris Grand Prize model derby from sometime between 1900 and 1920.

Once in a while the “to duplicate” tag was also in red. This is not real common, but it happens. This one was found in a 1920s era fedora.

Stetson’s first orange tag lasted possibly as long as the early 1930s. It was essentially the same tag as the brown one, just printed in orange.

Stetson’s more oblong orange tag lasted from the mid to late 30s to about 1957 or so. After that, the re-order number was incorporated into the size and block tag as you’ll see next.

Separate Size and Style Tags

Here are the separate size and style tags.

Stetson’s orange tag with a large size panel and three smaller panels from the sometime in the early 1900s to the early or mid 1930s or so. Note that the “to duplicate” info is no longer on the size and block tag.

Orange tag from the early to mid 30s to about 1940, note how panels are slightly different than above.

Orange tag from 1940 to the mid 1950s, note the further change in the panel set up.

An alternate tag to the one above, this one with the colors reversed. This was discovered in a practically destroyed Stetson Stratoliner Vita Felt from the early 1940s.

1950s to the early 60s. Notice that Stetson went back to incorporating the re-order and size info on the same tag.The first use of this tag seems to date to 1952 or so, but the earlier orange and red tags were also being used concurrently with this white one for at least 5 years after this white one was introduced. Collectors speculate Stetson was just using up its stock of the read and orange ones before going with the white one full time.

These re-order tags were a standard for many decades, but by the time the 60s and early 70s rolled around, Stetson had switched its inventory system to a computer-based system and began to use a big fold out tag that was glued to the side behind the sweatband instead of being glued to the felt in the back of the hat behind the sweatband. This last tag was about 2 inches wide and folded out to be 3 inches or so long.

Of course, by the 1970s, Stetson had done away with the idea that you could reorder your hat by the tag information, anyway. Stetson decided it did not want to spend the time messing around with all the records that the tags required them to maintain. Sadly, at this time all those old records were destroyed. All those records… just gone. Sad.

Post 1970 tag and the end of the re-ordering feature

Non-Stetson Hat Manufacturers

Inventory tags were quite common throughout the hat-making industry between the late 1890s all the way to the 1960s. There are all sorts of these tags and while they differ from manufacturer to manufacturer, one general rule of thumb is that they got smaller over the years. They also got less and less fancy. Early tags were quite fancy with little flourishes and fancy type styles. Then, as time moved on, all the prettiness of these tags went away until they just looked like a tag a computer churned out. You can see above the way Stetson’s devolved as an example. (In fact, Stetson’s were always pretty staid. Some manufacturers really got fancy.)

Here’s a few quick examples of other hat maker’s tags. Below you’ll find one from the No Name Hat company from about 1920 or so, one from the Hoyt Hats company, and one from the Biskup hat company. The latter two are from the late 1940s.

No Name Hats

Hoyt Hats

Biskup Hats

So, there you have it, folks. Some examples of inventory tags from other manufacturers. This system persisted until the hat industry went belly up as a customizable product.

More Hat Related Posts

• So… What’s the Deal With Those Hats, Huston? (A tour of my whole collection of hats)

• A Tour of My Collection of Antique Stetson Western Hats

• Observations on Fedora Sweatbands, Size Tags, and Fedora Dating Tips

• Dating Stetson Hats By Inventory Tag

• Dating Stetsons by Company Crests, Stetson Logos and Hat Liners

• Stetson Quality Designations, Just What Do Those Xs Mean, Anyway?

____________
“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson

Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, RightPundits.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, AmericanDaily.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.

For a full bio, please CLICK HERE.

-By Warner Todd Huston

We’ve already discussed how to get a feel for the manufacturing date of a Stetson hat using Stetson size tags and leather sweatbands as well as re-order and inventory tags. Now we will take a look at how Stetson company logos and crests and the liners inside their hats changed over the decades and how these points can also be used as a dating tool.

Welcome searchers of history and information about men’s hats, fedoras, top hats, derbies and bowlers, and, more specifically, Stetson history. If you’ve landed on this page, chances are you found us through a Google search as our pages now rank on the very first page for most search questions on hat history. For that we are shocked and grateful.

One of the reasons you found us, though, is because information on hats is not just hard to find, it is very, very hard to find. But on these pages you’ll find much of what you need to know and resources to look elsewhere for other great info, too.

A Glossary of Hat Terms, Words, Definitions, And Styles

All the hat terms you need to know to understand the world of hats and hat wearing.

Stetson Quality Designations, Just
What Do Those Xs Mean, Anyway?

Everyone wants to know what the heck Stetson means by those “genuine” Xs. Here we endeavor to answer that question.

Observations on Fedora Sweatbands,
Size Tags, and Fedora Dating Tips

Wherein we help you date your Stetson using the tags noted.

Dating Stetson Hats By Inventory Tag

These tags are another of the many ways to track down a date of a Stetson hat.

A Tour of My Collection of Antique Stetson Western Hats

This fascinating page has detailed photos of Stetson cowboy hat collection. These hats were made from the late 1800s, through the 1900s.

So… What’s the Deal With Those Stetson Hats, Huston?

This is an interesting walk through my personal collection of antique fedoras. Please enjoy the journey.

And now on with Dating Stetsons by Company Crests, Stetson Logos and Hat Liners…

As America’s civil war ground to a close in 1865 and the post war rebuilding period got underway, a new era of advertising began–one with which we are still very familiar in our time. Today we call this “branding,” the idea of associating a product with its maker in order to urge customers to acquire brand loyalty. But this branding is not new to our modern era. In fact, it began in the late 1800s and Stetson became experts in this new way of doing business.

Now, as with the other ways of dating hats, these guidelines rarely give exact dates. Sometimes they give a decade, sometimes a few decades, other times only an “era,” if you will (i.e. a time before or after a particular date). Keep in mind that using logos and liners is just one more tool to help date a hat.

Stetson Logos and Company Crests

There are two basic Stetson crests for most hats that still exist today. Certainly there were all sorts of variations in the fine points of the drawing of the crest from hat to hat and era to era but there was really only two basic styles of the official company crest. Essentially there was one with stars and the later one with a maple leaf instead of stars. This logo can also help you date a hat but only in a single point of demarcation–a before and after time period.

The most well know Stetson crest lasted from the 1890s/1900s to about 1950 or so. Then a second one took over after that.

The logo above appeared in a Stetson straw boater from the 1930s. Notice that the shield has a field of stars in the upper left hand corner near the beaver figure.

By about 1950 or so Stetson made a small alteration in its crest. See the change below from a 1950s era Stetson 3X fedora. Look closely and you’ll notice a maple leaf in that upper left hand corner instead of the field of stars.

So, that was the big change between the 1890s and the end of the Stetson era. Some collectors posit that the maple leaf was added when Stetson enlarged its Canadian manufacturing presence. But I have no proof of this claim. It sounds good, though, doesn’t it?

One thing is sure, most of the Stetson hats made by license in Canada are from the 1950s and 60s. So, maybe that is the reason Stetson added the maple leaf? I guess it’s as good a theory as any. We will likely never know exactly why the change was made.

Other Stetson Liner Logo Variations

Now, along with the common stars or maple leaf versions of the Stetson logo, the company also used many other logos and variations of the crest over the decades. Below is an array of some of the various logos Stetson used over the decades. This is in no way an exhaustive list as Stetson had hundreds of logos and crown imprints. But these are some of the most common ones and the eras in which they appeared.

The Oldest Stetson Crests

There were a bunch of crests and imprint designs used before the 1890s, though. Hats with these crests and markings are practically non-existent out there, unfortunately. These different logos were used even up to like 1920, or so, before the beaver/griffin version took over permanently.

These logos are from an advertisement card issued during the nation’s Centennial year in 1876.

This one was in a late 1800s era collapsible (Gibus) top hat.Notice the address. The 1108 Chestnut Street showroom closed in 1913. So, this hat was made before 1913 at least.

This is the liner inside a Stetson top hat made after 1913.We know that date because Stetson opened its new retail store at 1224 Chestnut St., Philadelphia on Feb. 13, 1913. Notice the animal motifs are different than the beaver/griffin used more often later on.

*Thanks to the Fedora Lounge for the above images.

The Stetson Exposition Logo

Stetson won some prizes in the late 1800s and up to 1900 at the international expositions in Paris. The company proudly informed hat buyers of these prestigious awards in the liners of their hats between the 1870s and up until sometime in the 1920s.

This logo is from a late 1800s era Stetson Collapsible (Gibus) Top Hat.

This is essentially the same logo as above, but a more clearly printed version as found in a Stetson Silk Top Hat from the late 1800s.

A Paris 1889 expo logo found in a high derby from the 1890s.

This logo is from an early 1900s era Stetson Top Hat.

This logo is from between 1900 and 1910 or so.

This logo is from around 1915.

By the 1920s Stetson began to use “The Avenue” as a model name but was still using the exposition medal logos. This is from a 1920s derby.

This logo is from the late 20s “The Avenue” model fedora.

Stetson Logos from the 1930s

In the 1930s, Stetson changed its quality designations. These particular quality level designations only lasted during the 30s before Stetson again altered its quality naming scheme. In the 30s Stetson used the following designations: from the low end up came Standard Quality; Excellent Quality; Select Quality; Superior Quality; and Extra Quality. (Stetson also continued to use 3X, 4X, 5X and 7X quality during these periods, especially for western hats.)

Here are a few examples of the 30s era liner or inside crown logos:

This logo is from the liner of a 30s era Excellent Quality fedora.

This is a tip-in logo from 30s era Select Quality fedora (see below about tip-ins).

Stetson Logos from the 1940s

By the time the 1940s dawned, Stetson again changed its quality designations, but this time the company would stick with the basic appellations all the way until today. By 1940 the quality designations became Royal; Royal De Luxe; Medalist; Sovereign; Imperial; and Premier. (Stetson continued to use 3X, 4X, 7X and then added Twenty-Five, Forty, Fifty, and One-Hundred, especially in westerns, but the latter few were also used in fedoras.)

The 1940s era Royal Stetson.

The 1940s era Royal De Luxe Stetson.

The 1940s era Imperial Stetson.

Stetson Logos from the 1950s

As noted above, Stetson replaced the star shield logo with the maple leaf shield logo. Here are a few of those 1950s era liner logos.

Now, you’ll notice that many of these liners have clear plastic over the logo in the crown. This is a post Korean War development. After 1953 Stetson and other hat manufacturers began to place clear plastic over their logos in crown liners. One reason for this was because men were using a lot of heavy hair creams and these hair treatments often badly stained hat liners. The clear plastic was an attempt to make liners stay stain free for a longer period of time.

The 1950s era Royal Stetson Whippet.

The 1950s era Royal De Luxe Stetson.

The 1950s era Stetson No. 1 Quality Western.

The 1950s era Stetson Twenty-Five.

The 1950s era Stetson One Hundred.

Stetson Logos from the 1960s

An early 1960s era Stetson 3X Quality liner.

A 1960s era Stetson logo.

An early 1960s era Stetson Twenty-Five Liner.

Stetson’s “Last Drop” Liner

The “Last Drop” crown liner was a recurring image for Stetson from the 1950s onward. The first “Last Drop” liner was an elaborate embroidered affair. But by the 1970s and 80s the company moved to a screen printed style to save production costs.

A 1950s era Stetson “Last Drop” embroidered liner.

An early 1970s era Stetson printed “Last Drop” liner.

Stetson’s “Last Drop” printed liner from the late 1970s on into the 1990s.

Stetson’s “Last Drop” embroidered liner from an expensive 30X El Patron western made in the 1990s or 2000s. This is a $600 hat.

Post 1960s Stetson Logos

A mid to late 1960s or early 70s Stetson liner logo.

The liner from a Stetson Nostalgia model hat from the late 1990s.

The liner from a Stetson Stratoliner model hat from 2011.

A Few Stetson “Tip-In” Labels

It should be noted that Stetson did not always include a liner in its hats. In some cases the company only glued a paper sticker or a cloth label into the crown of a hat. This was usually done only when the hat was supposed to be a summer hat or a light weight hat. Often it was deemed that putting in a full liner added too much weight to the hat or would make it too hot for summer wear. Regardless, Stetson still wanted to have its advertisement inside the hat, so a sticker or cloth label was glued into the crown to serve that purpose. In other instances the logo was actually printed right onto the felt instead of onto a liner or label that was glued inside the crown.

Below are a few examples of this treatment, I call these labels “tip-ins.”

A cloth label glued into the crown of a 1900 made Stetson bowler.

A tip-in from the early 1940s bearing the Stetson Stratoliner logo.

A tip-in from a 1940s Playboy model. Below you can see the air holes drilled through the felt of the crown denoting that this was a summer weight hat.

And here is an example of the logo being actually printed right onto the felt. This in a 1940s era Stratoliner.

Some Other Crown Liner Examples

A high derby from the 1890s.

Liner from a Penn Craft derby from the 1930s.

Notice the fancy pleats in the silk in the two liners above? This sort of flourish started to go away as time moved on, as the hat industry became more invested in systems of mass production, and as the industry sought ways to cut costs.

By the mid 1940s, liners were a little more utilitarian in many ways, but one thing that began to show up around this period is some sort of protective film over the company logo in the top of the crown. This was added by many hat makers to keep their company logos clean and readable as more and more men began to use hair treatments that often discolored hat liners. On the Stetson Whippet below, for instance, you can see a translucent, yellow covering made of a sort of oil cloth material. It was opaque, not clear but you could still see the company logo through it.

The liner from a 1940s Edward Biskup fedora. Note that it is covered in an oil skin-like protector. These came about in the mid 1940s and were eventually replaced by the clear plastic protectors starting in 1953.

A liner from a 1950s Borsalino fedora. Borso is one of Italy’s best hat makers and is known the world over for high quality.

A Dobbs hat company Hankachif Weight Felt fedora from the 1950s.

A Knox hat company Twenty from the 1950s.

A Lee hat company White Label quality fedora from the 1950s.

Other interesting sites on logos and liners:

Adam Hat Company Liners

For detailed info about Dobbs, Knox, Cavanagh, and Crofut and Knapp hat companies and dating of same, see the The Hatted Professor

More Hat Related Posts

• So… What’s the Deal With Those Hats, Huston? (A tour of my whole collection of hats)

• A Tour of My Collection of Antique Stetson Western Hats

• Observations on Fedora Sweatbands, Size Tags, and Fedora Dating Tips

• Dating Stetson Hats By Inventory Tag

• Dating Stetsons by Company Crests, Stetson Logos and Hat Liners

• Stetson Quality Designations, Just What Do Those Xs Mean, Anyway?

____________
“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson

Follow Warner Todd Huston on:
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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, Wizbang.com, among many, many others. Huston has also appeared on Fox News, Fox Business Network, CNN, and many local TV shows as well as numerous talk radio shows throughout the country.

For a full bio, please CLICK HERE.

–By Warner Todd Huston

Welcome searchers of history and information about men’s hats, fedoras, top hats, derbies and bowlers, and, more specifically, Stetson history. If you’ve landed on this page, chances are you found us through a Google search as our pages now rank on the very first page for most search questions on hat history. For that we are shocked and grateful.

One of the reasons you found us, though, is because information on hats is not just hard to find, it is very, very hard to find. But on these pages you’ll find much of what you need to know and resources to look elsewhere for other great info, too.

What you’ll find on this page is a glossary of terms you’ll need to know as you learn about hats. However, before we get to that here is the index of our other pages:

Stetson Quality Designations, Just
What Do Those Xs Mean, Anyway?

Everyone wants to know what the heck Stetson means by those “genuine” Xs. Here we endeavor to answer that question.

Observations on Fedora Sweatbands,
Size Tags, and Fedora Dating Tips

Wherein we help you date your Stetson using the tags noted.

Dating Stetsons by Company Crests,
Stetson Logos and Hat Liners

Because the Stetson logo changed only a finite number of times, here you’ll find yet another way to help date your Stetson.

Dating Stetson Hats By Inventory Tag

These tags are another of the many ways to track down a date of a Stetson hat.

A Tour of My Collection of Antique Stetson Western Hats

This fascinating page has detailed photos of Stetson cowboy hat collection. These hats were made from the late 1800s, through the 1900s.

So… What’s the Deal With Those Stetson Hats, Huston?

This is an interesting walk through my personal collection of antique fedoras. Please enjoy the journey.

Now, let’s talk about some hat terms…

I’ll start with the few important hat names and styles in the general order of their introductions to the world, then go into the others in alphabetical order.

There are two basic types of brimmed hats. Stiff felts and soft felts. Soft felts were always thought of as casual hats, not formal hats, though the soft crowned Homburg model hat was a semi-formal hat and became the hat of bankers and businessmen. in stiff hats, the top hat was considered a formal hat, though they were worn in all situations by all classes of men the whole time. (Some of the charts below were created at The Fedora Lounge)

Fedora: The word fedora seems to have become the term for a soft man’s felt hat because of a stage play written in 1882 by dramatist Victorien Sardou It was titled Fédora and was written for the famed actress Sarah Bernhardt. In the play she wore a large-brimmed, soft felt hat with a long crease down the middle. This hat style became a hit with women for a time but soon morphed into a man’s hat. Of course, soft felt hats weren’t invented with the 1882 play as men were already wearing hats like what would forever afterward be called a fedora. Previous to the introduction of the word fedora, hats like the fedora were called “slouch hats” or simply soft hats. An important feature of a fedora is what is called the “snap brim”–look below for that definition.

Cowboy Hat: This was the style of hat that became popular just before the Civil War and used in the hotter, western climates of the USA. They were originally called slouch hats or a “sugar loaf” hat. They sort of evolved from the wide brimmed Mexican sombrero and became most famous after Philadelphia hat maker John B. Stetson went west for his health and saw some of these wide-brimmed hats. He popularized the style calling his model “The Boss Of The Plains.” It featured a 5 inch or so, rounded crown and a 3 or 4 inch flat brim. Sometimes the brim also had a pencil or kettle curl around the edges. This style was popular from about 1865 to the 1890s when crown heights started to get taller and all manner of creases became added to the taller crowns. The cowboy hat became almost cartoonish by the the 1920s and 1930s when the movie cowboys began wearing 6 and 7 inch tall crowned hats sometimes featuring 5 inch or larger brims. Cowboy actor Tom Mix is most identified with this latter style of cowboy hat. But by the 40s and 50s these hats started shrinking back down to size until they have take the more familiar form we think of today as a cowboy hat.

Stetson: Contrary to popular opinion, a “Stetson” is not a generic name for a cowboy hat anywhere but popular fiction which used the term as a general slang for “cowboy hat.” With his famous “Boss of the Plains” model hat (seen below), John B. Stetson did help popularize the western-styled, wide-brimmed cowboy hat, of course, and he encouraged people to think of the name Stetson when talking hats, but he neither invented the cowboy hat nor was its only producer. Few real people called their hat a Stetson unless it actually WAS a hat made by Stetson! John B. Stetson is the founder of the famous company which began its long life in 1865. John was from a hat making family, too. Along with his father and brothers he helped start the “No Name Hat Company” (amusingly, they could never arrive at a company name so agreed to call it “No Name”) before John stepped out on his own and started his eponymous hat company. Later on, his brother, Stephen L. Stetson, tried to start his own hat company named the Stetson hat company, but older brother John sued him to stop the use of the famous brand name. Later all Stephen L. Stetson hats carried a legal disclaimer that said the hat was “in no way affiliated” with John B. Stetson hats. The actual Stetson hat company ceased manufacturing hats, closed its doors and was defunct by 1974. But the name was sold to a series of companies and now exists really as a brand name as opposed to an actual hat company.

Bowler (or Derby): These hats are a rounded, stiff fur felt hat that were first invented in Britain to serve as a sort of safety hat to wear while riding a horse. They were originally called Coke’s hats after the man who introduced them as equestrian wear in 1849. But soon they became a sometimes semi-formal but widely popular hat with men of all ranks and station. The crown of a bowler–or derby in American vernacular–is so stiff that you cannot alter its shape without damaging the hat. They are what is known as a “stiff hat.” Top hats are also part of the “stiff hat” genre. Even though they were worn all across the American west by every manner of man, they developed a reputation as a city dude’s hat and for many decades were a symbol of a business-minded man of the middle classes. By the 1940s, though, they became sort of derided as the hat of the upper middle classes and by the mid 1950s they had pretty much gone out of style. Bowlers, though, were the most worn hat between the 1880s and about 1930. Photos of city streets, or large crowds during this time period will show more men in bowlers than any other kind of hat.

Homburg: This German-created hat was popularized by King Edward VII who brought one back to England after a visit to Bad Homburg in Hesse, Germany in the late 1800s. It has a brim sort of like a top hat or bowler and is relatively stiff and cannot be altered by the wearer but also has a crown that can be shaped and reshaped at will. The most common crease for a Homburg is a single long dent running front to back with two side dents. The hat became thought of as a semi-formal hat worn by the upper classes as part of their business attire. But Homburgs with somewhat less generous proportions were also very popular for general wear. Hats that look very much like a Homburg–with the soft crown and the permanently formed, curled brim–were one of the most common forms of soft hats until the fedora sort of took over its place as the most common hat style. These Homburg-like soft felts were very popular from the 1880s to about 1930 when fedoras started becoming more popular.

Top Hat: The top hat is one of the older hat styles having first came about in latter part of the 18th century. It is of the stiff hat variety meaning that the brim and crown are stiff, are permanently formed, and cannot be altered without damage. Toppers are generally between 6-1/2 inches and 7 inches tall, but in the early decades of the 1800s could often reach to 8 inches in height. Early toppers had a metal buckle on the outside ribbon instead of a bow. The top hat is often thought of as a formal hat in black, but this style was thought of as a hat for general wear for well over a century and came in a variety of colors and materials. Originally made of beaver, by the 1850s top hat makers had switched to silk and almost no toppers made after that period were made of beaver. In fact, nearly every antique top hat in existence today is made of silk plush because very, very few hats from before 1850 still exist. So, the chances that your antique top hat is made of beaver are slim to nil. Because of that, the top hat was also called “the silk hat” up until the 1950s when they started to disappear from the market place. Interestingly, today’s newly made top hats are again made of fur plush (Christy’s, for instance, calls theirs “melusine”) because the manufacturing technique and equipment to make the silk plush is long gone.

Panama Hat: The Panama hat became famous in the 1800s and remains popular even to this day. It is a lightweight hat made of straw and often associated with summer wear, or use in hotter climates. They are hats made of natural fibers as well as synthetics and often woven by hand. The world of straw hats is a whole milieu of its own and has a host of terms, styles, and regionalisms. Straw hats are somewhat stiff hats, but can be reshaped using steam. Generally, though, once a straw hat has been shaped, that is how it will stay. (See below for more straw hat info)

Straw Boater: A straw boater is another model in the stiff hat category. A boater is a summer hat worn only in casual situations.They have a crown no higher than four inches and a 2 to 3 inch wide, stiff, flat brim. These hats became extremely popular from 1900 to about 1940 when they began to go out of style. It was thought quite gauche to wear a straw boater out of season and in the early days in big cities like New York gangs of teens would steal straw boaters off the heads of passersby in the streets if they were being worn in Fall or Winter. The kids would then smash the hats and throw them into the streets.

Pork Pie: A pork pie is almost easy to confuse with a trilby and a fedora both because it is sort of a hat in the middle of those two styles. The pork pie usually has a shortened soft crown with a telescope crease in it–a dent that is round, pushed in from the top, and then pushed back upward leaving a channel between the crown and the side of the hat. The brim can be snapped, but is usually worn dished upwards all the way around. The pork pie brim is often between 2-1/4 inches to 1 inch wide. This style hat became very popular with jazz musicians.

Trilby: This is another hat style that became famous because of a stage play (and the novel that preceded it). The name comes from a stage adaptation of George du Maurier’s 1894 novel Trilby. This term means something slightly different in England than it does the USA, though. It is common for many styles of fedora to be called a trilby in England, but in the USA it more often applies only to a fedora with a small (under 2 inches) un-snapable brim and a regular, full crown, a style that looks far more like the Tyrolean hat than a regular, full-brimmed fedora.

Tyrolean hat: This is a soft felt, usually with a brim under 2-1/2 inches, and generally in an earth tone color like brown or green. They are also sometimes called a “Bavarian” or “Alpine” hat. These are hats worn by ethnic Germans and Italians–the Tyrol peoples. They usually have a rope for a ribbon on the outside and sometimes feature elaborate feather devices and pewter pins.

A Note About the Tyrolean hat: As suggested by a page visitor, I should note that there is another “part” to the Alpine hats. The gamsbart, or large brush-like fixture you often see on the hats (and as seen in the image above), is a common feature of the Tyrolean hat. It literally means “chamois beard” and was originally a hunting trophy made of the hair taken from a chamois’ lower neck before it just became a common, traditional ornament for the hat. The hats also often have pewter pins and other ornaments affixed to them.

Newsboy or 8 Panel cap: These are also called “cabbie hats” because they were popular for drivers to wear because they don’t get in the way inside the cab of a car or truck. These caps were very popular for boys from the 1890s to the 1950s. They were also popular with adult laborers because they stay on better than a fedora during physical labor. These caps often denoted a lower class person but were also used as “walking hats” by other classes. Another similar style called the flat cap became popular with car drivers because they stayed on better than fedoras as the wind whipped around the driver.

Baseball cap: Wearers of baseball caps should either be boys under ten years of age or people playing baseball. Otherwise you should not be wearing that damn hat. It is a little kid’s hat. If you are a grown man, stop wearing a ball cap. Just stop it. I mean it.

General Hat Terms

• Beaver- The most desirable fur with which to make a hat. Beaver fur is resilient but soft and holds its shape incredibly well. It is also a more expensive material to use for hat making. Most fur felt hats have less beaver and more rabbit fur because of the expense of beaver.
• Bash- This is another word for the creases or dents put in a hat. This word seems to be favored over “crease” in Australia.
• Brim- The horizontal rim of a hat the juts out at a 90 degree angle from the hat crown. These take a variety of shapes, some straight, some curled. In a fedora they are dished and can be “snapped” down or up.
• Brim Treatments- The brim of a fedora can be finished in a variety of ways. Here are the various styles of brim edge: A “raw brim” means the felt is just cut square and there is no treatment at the brim edge; “Overwelt” features the brim edge folded upward upon itself and usually secured with a line of stitching; “Underwelt” is the same as the overwelt but folded downward instead of upward; “Ribbon Bound Edge” is finished with a ribbon sewn into place; “Stitched Edge” means that there is one two or more rows of stitching radiating inward toward the crown; “Cavanagh Edge” is a welted edge with invisible stitching to hold it in place and is a very expensive treatment that can no longer be performed by modern hat factories.

• Campaign Hat- A term favored by the US army from the Civil War to WWII. It refers to a soft felt hat used by field armies. It is most commonly applied to the flat-brimmed, Montana peak-styled M-1911 field army hat. It is also called the “Drill Sergeant Hat.”

• Cone (or Hat Blank or Hood)- The raw, un-shaped felt material used to make a hat.
• Crease- The dents or shapes put into a hat. Also called a “bash.”

• Crown- The top of a hat, the part that fits over a wearer’s head.
• Eyelets- metal devices that are like small grommets stamped into the sides of the hat crown that allow air to flow inside the hat crown.
• Fur Felt- A fur felt hat is a material made of animal fur. It is not made using the skin or pelt. Only the fur. The fur is sheared off the left and the fluffy stuff is put in a machine that spins and wets the fur until it congeals in a felt pad-like material. Various processes are used to finish this felt material. Rabbit or Hare fur is the most used fur for a fur felt hat while beaver is the most desirable. However, furs like chinchilla, mink, vicuna, nutria, and other furs are also used in fur felt hats. Even buffalo fur has been used to make fur felt hats.
• Gibus- a Gibus device is the spring device inside a collapsible top hat that lets it be folded down and then popped back up into full form. The device was invented in 1812 by Frenchman Antoine Gibus. Mr. Gibus wanted to invent a top hat that could be crushed down for ease of storage under a theater seat. For this reason it is also called an “Opera Hat.”
• Hat Steamer- A device that turns water into steam. It helps a wearer reshape the hat’s brim or crown and also helps clean the hat. Not every hat wearer has his own home steamer (such as the Jiffy hat steamer) but all professional hat shops do.

• Hat Stretcher- A device meant to keep a hat held to its proper size or to stretch it out if it contracts. Over the years, hats will shrink in size if not kept in a stretcher. Hats often lose a size or even more over time as the leather, felt, and stitching contracts. It is not uncommon for a hat to be abused in use that it gets larger, too, but shrinking is more common. Hat stretchers come in a variety of styles. Some made of wood, some metal, some plastic. But all feature a device that opens up from a central axis to push the hat outward.

• Liner- A liner is a silk or silk-like material inside a hat that serves to keep stray hairs and hair treatments from staining the inside of a hat. In the old days of hats a liner could be replaced many times inside a hat when they got dirty. Liners first started to be used around the time of the Civil War. A liner also serves as an advertising platform as the hat manufacturer often puts its logo and imprints on the liner. Liners can be sewn in place but most hat makers today just glue them in place with a few spots of glue around the base of the hat. Previous to the civil war a paper label might have been glued into the crown of a hat to carry the manufacturer or seller’s name. Top hats usually had paper liners until the turn of the 1900s.
• Millinery- The profession of making hats, often used to describe the industry for women’s hats.
• Milliner- A hat maker.
• Melusine Fur- Often used for top hats and some fedora’s, a quality fur felt often long haired which is polished and repeatedly brushed until a silk like look is achieved
• Mothing- Fur felt hats are a favorite food of insects. Hats that sit out in the open for years in the corner of an attic or closet are prone to being munched on by the Tinea Pellionella–or the clothes moth–a moth that eats the keratin in natural fibers. They burrow into these fibers (wool sweaters, cotton cloth, or the fur felt of hats) and lay their eggs. Then, when the eggs hatch, the tiny moth larvae eat the natural fibers to grow large enough to fly away. Needless to say, they destroy what they touch. I talk more about moth damage at the Stetson Quality page.

• Opera Hat- See “Gibus” above.
• Pinch- The dents of creases in the front of a hat (see images above and see “crease”).
• Puggaree- A style of cloth “ribbon” or decoration, often with pleats and in loud colors-–that go around the outside crown of a hat. A puggaree often has small claws at each end so that they can be removed and changed out at will.

• Ribbon- The decorative band around the outside of a hat. It can be Petersham or grosgrain ribbon. Sometimes in place of a ribbon there is a rope-like device (as in Tyrolean hats) of a cloth band like a puggaree. Sometimes it is a band made of the same material as the hat and these are called “same felt” or “self felted” ribbons.
• Silverbelly- This is a particular color of hat. It is usually made of the most delicate and finest belly fur of a beaver and is usually a whitish, gray color. Some assume Silverbelly is undeyed fur, but I don’t think that was ever true. 100% beaver can still be dyed any color, so it is more likely that “silverbelly” refers to the color itself more than it does the type of fur.
• Snap Brim- This is a brim that is dished upwards from the factory, but can be “snapped” down just in front, or all the way around-–meaning the brim isn’t in a fixed state like that of a cowboy hat or a stiff hat. It is one of the main features of a fedora.
• Stampede String- A string pushed through holes on the sides of the brim that coumes down under the neck to hold the hat on the head while riding a horse or in high winds. There are seen on boonie hats and cowboy hats.
• Stingy Brim- A stingy is a brim is one under 2-3/8 inches. Shorter brims were popular in the 1800s to about 1920 and then again starting about 1958 or so.
• Sweatband- The sweatband is an ingenious invention, really. It is a simple strip of leather (in newer hats often a synthetic leather-like material) that helps keep your hat on your head. The leather helps stick to you skin better than a hat without a sweatband and therefore keeps the hat on your head better. It also tends to help keep the shape of the hat intact. In the old days a leather sweatband was a very fine leather treatment and a lot of attention was paid to it but as hats became more expensive to manufacture and became more mass produced the fanciness of the leather began to suffer. Sweatbands are sewn in in two ways: a reeded sweatband and an unreeded sweatband. Much more on sweatbands can be seen at my sweatband page.

• Sweat barrier- In the late 40s and early 50s the hat industry experimented with an oil skin or plastic barrier sewn into the leather sweatband situated between the hat body and the leather. This was meant to keep the wearer’s sweat form getting through the leather and into the felt. These barriers ended up being a bad idea because by trapping the sweat in place it often tended to hasten the deterioration of the stitching and leather both. The hat industry stopped using them well before 1960.
• Velour- A velour hat is a particularly fine surface treatment of a fur felt hat. It is expensive and hard to produce and for that reason wasn’t the most common surface treatment of a hat body. They also demanded higher prices. The Germans made some of the inset velours in the world for generations. It is pretty much a lost art these days.
• Wind or Trolly String- A string affixed to the hat crown that ends with a loop and a button device. This string and button device is meant to be looped around a shirt or coat button or through a button hole in a shirt or coat. The concept is that if the hat blows off the wearer’s head, the string will keep it with his person and prevent the hat from being blown down the street. When not in use the string and button can be pulled snug around the crown of the hat by the ribbon (see images below).

• Whippet- This is a particular model of hat made famous by Stetson. It generally has a 2-1/2 to 2-7/8 inch brim with a ribbon bound edge. It has a pinch front and a 1-1/2 to 1-3/4 inch ribbon. A Stetson Whippet is not aStetson Whippet unless it is marked “Whippet” on either the leather sweatband or the liner. Regardless, the style is one of the most classic fedora designs.
• Wool- This is not the best material to use to make a fedora. Wool does not hold its shape well over time and with wear and is considered a “cheap” material.
• XXX Beaver- This is a demarcation of quality. It usually refers to how much beaver fur is in the hat. This is a very involved term and I have written more about it on another one of my hat pages.

Panama and Straw Hat Terms

Straw hats are a whole world all by themselves and since they have been around for hundreds of years there are a multitude of materials and styles. But here are a few terms associated with the straw hat. There are many terms in straw hat making, but here are the most important:

• Baku- A straw made of Philippine fiber. Also once called Shantung.
• Hanoki- A lightweight hat made of Chinese wood fiber twisted into fine, rope-like strands, and woven.
• Hemp- A light and resilient plant fiber originating in Manila. It is machine-woven into open-weave bodies.
• Milan- A soft, golden straw found in China.
• Montecristi Panama- a straw from Ecuador that is usually of the highest (and most expensive) quality.True Montecristis can often cost thousands of dollars.
• Optimo Panama- This straw hat has a round crown with a ridge running from front to back. It is also sometimes called a “colonial straw”
• Panama straw- These are hats made of toquilla fiber, which is woven in Ecuador, Colombia and Peru.
• Panapore straw- Usually a wider, less tight weave and a cheaper straw hat.
• Parasisal Straw- A high grade sisal straw used mainly for the best quality of hats.
• Paribuntal- From China, it is a Bakou straw in a wider, looser weave
• Shantung- Was originally the name for the Philippine Baku but now usually refers to either a paper straw or a plastic straw, not a natural fiber straw.
• Toyo Straw- This is a “straw” made of paper and invented in Japan.

Straw weave styles:
There are two basic weaves and both have “grades” to them with more weaves per inch. The tighter the weave the more time consuming to make the hat and, therefore, the more expensive.

• Cuenca- A weave that leaves a herringbone look.
• Brisa- A tighter weave than the Cuenca and indicative of a more expensive hat.

Here is an image showing two of the kinds of Panama hat weaves to show some differences in styles:

Hat Companies

Here is a list of some of the more common, larger hat companies from the late 1800s until most went defunct by the 1960s. There were literally thousands of smaller, local hat companies, but these were the larger, national brands.

American Brands:

• Adam
• Bailey
• Beaver Brand
• Bee
• Biskup
• Bollman (Still in business)
• Bond
• Cavanagh
• Champ
• Charlie 1 Horse (Still in business)
• Churchill
• Crouft & Knapp
• Dalton
• Davis
• Dayton
• Disney
• Dobbs (Still in business)
• Dunlap
• Embassy
• Hoyt
• Hudsonian
• Jay-Mor
• Knox (Still in business)
• Lee
• Lion
• Mallory
• Melton
• Morfelt
• Penn-Craft
• Penny Marathon
• Pilgrim
• Portis
• Resistol (Still in business)
• Schenley
• Schoble
• Stetson (Still in business)
• Wormser

Foreign Brands:

Australian

• Akubra (Still in business)

Canadian

• Biltmore (Still in business)

Czechoslovakian

• Tonak (Still in business)

English

• Christys’ (Still in business)
• G.A. Dunn & Co.
• Lock & Company (Still in business)

German

• Huckel
• Mayser (Still in business)
• Wegener (Still in business)

Italian

• Barbisio (Still in business)
• Barlesoni (Still in business)
• Borsolino (Still in business)
• Solferino

Stetson, The Making of a Legend: Westerns

(Notice that all that fluffy stuff floating around is the actual fur. You’ll note that the “skin” of the animal is NOT used for hats. Just the fluffy fur which is matted together to make the hat body.)

Stetson, The Making of a Legend: Dress Hats

Stetson, The Making of a Legend: Newsboy-Styled Caps

How Australia’s Famed Akubra Hats are Made

Well, this one is in German, but it still shows the process pretty well.

____________
“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
––Samuel Johnson

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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, Wizbang.com, among many, many others. Huston has also appeared on Fox News, Fox Business Network, CNN, and many local TV shows as well as numerous talk radio shows throughout the country.

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