Vintage John B Stetson Beaver Felt Wide Brim High Crown Gus Cowboy Hat, Sz 7 1/2

  

Professionally Restored Giant Sized Vintage Stetson Beaver Fur Felt Cowboy Hat with a Super High 7 1/2" Crown and Extra Wide 5" Brim , Size 7 1/2. Estimated Era of Manufacture: 1. Quality: This hat has no "X" designation but the felt feels like it has at least as much beaver fur content as a modern 6X Stetson.

Size: 7 1/2, Size has been measured and confirmed at 60 or 23 1/2 which is a size 7 1/2. Brim Size: 5 with pencil curl edge. Crown Height: 7 1/2 with Gus Style Crease.

Hat Band: 1 1/2 Ivory Grosgrain Ribbon. The felt is dense and. And holds its shape well as any higher quality hat like this should. This is the type of hat that keeps your whole body dry through a rainstorm without losing. And is ready to put on the next morning. No muss, no fuss, perfect for the guy who goes to work everyday on horseback. The sweatband is soft and supple with no sign of structural damage.

Print is slightly rubbed off but still clearly read indicating little moderate amount use prior to restoration. Please see my other listings for more hats and various hat accessories. I'm very proud of the many nice comments from my previous customers.

I'm a retired gentleman with a lifelong love for fine quality western style hats. I've collected many hats in my life and developed a network for acquiring more all the time. I typically maintain an inventory of several hundred hats in various stages of restoration. Over the years I've learned a number of restoration techniques from professional hatters and developed my own hat restoration process that I'm constantly refining. I do it out of love and appreciation for the superior quality that went into making these old hats at a time when pride in workmanship and creating a product with enduring value really meant something.

One of my favorite qualities of a nice felt hat is its durability and the dramatic metamorphosis that takes place when I transform a dirty, old, neglected, misshapen hat into something beautiful; a hat that looks brand new, ready to bring enjoyment to its proud new owner for another lifetime. My 3 step deep cleaning process removes any unsightly stains or odors. Then each hat is reblocked tight to return it to its original open crowned and flat brimmed form. After reblocking the condition of the sweatband is inspected. If the leather is found to be brittle, cracked or damaged, I patch and reinforce it with a pliable backing strip bonded to the back.

By preserving rather than replacing the original sweatband all the important brand and quality information is retained. Then each hat is steamed shaped by hand and stiffened with a professional grade shellac solution. If it came with one, the cleaned silk liner is reinstalled and a hat band is applied. X value depends on age If you're shopping for a new hat the "X" system is useful for comparing hats of the same brand, but with vintage hats more consideration should be placed on when the hat was made. Generally speaking, the older the hat the more beaver fur was incorporated into the felt, which with western style hats translates to a thinner, stiffer felt and a lighter weight, higher quality hat.

Hats beyond a certain age didn't use "Xs" and relied on the price to communicate quality. Back around the 1910s or 20s when Stetson first started giving their hats an "X" designation the 7X was their top end hat, but most of their hats didn't get any Xs at all. A fellow eBayer recently sent me a 1922 Stetson price list and from most to least expensive it went 7X, 5X, 4X, 3X, Real Nutria, Nutria, No.

1 Quality, Extra Quality, Excellent Quality, and Select Quality, so the original Stetson 3X cost more and was higher quality than the No. That's why whenever I see a 1920s or 30s Stetson 3X priced low I snap it up quick. There's simply no comparison between an early Stetson 3X and the current Stetson 3X which is made of 100% wool. The problem Stetson ran into with their new X system is there's no "FDA" of hats, so there was nothing to prevent company XYZ from marking their inferior hats with 10, 100 or even 1000 Xs.

So the X race was on, and over the decades there's been substantial Xflation. X value depends on maker. As much as I love those early Stetson 3X hats, I'm pretty sure the earliest 3X Resistol hats are even higher quality. But when other hat makers started putting more Xs on their hats the whole industry followed suit. This is how Xflation got extreme, but also uneven.

For example, if Stetson's thousand dollar hat is a 100X, and that same year Larry Mahan's thousand dollar hat was marked 500X, is the Larry Mahan a better hat? Well, maybe or maybe not. Is it 5 times better quality than the Stetson, and therefore some kind of amazing deal? The simple answer is no, but the truest answer is probably which hat do you prefer? Depending on the blend fur felt can have a wide range of properties, from thinner to thicker, softer to stiffer to color, texture, and sheen, your own subjective preferences have a role to play.

The one that feels right on your head and makes you feel good when you wear it is the best quality hat for you.