A couple of HJs

Fedora · Post by **Fedora** » Mon Apr 17, 2006 12:38 pm

Here a a couple of HJs, from Mr Swales I think, that John(our Lucas Warehouse Guy) sent me. I thought I would share them here.

regards, Fedora

Dutch_jones · Post by **Dutch_jones** » Mon Apr 17, 2006 1:18 pm

looks almost if the left one has somekind of Mold on the top of the crown

Antone · Post by **Antone** » Mon Apr 17, 2006 2:24 pm

Looks like the one of the right has had a bit more bleach applied to it; it's more red and the ribbon is lighter. Or perhaps it got to see more weather if it was distressed naturally...

I also think the hourglass shape it has acquired is interesting. It's
like it wants to do a Cairo mushroom but the block is a little too tapered to get real reverse taper. Then again, the center crease is clearly a bit too high; from the side view shot, the crease isn't low enough in back on either hat, and perhaps even a touch high in front. I wonder what it would look like with a lower crease at the back.

It's hard to tell if it's the right block shape with the bashes and all the distressing. Please tell me more Steve, I'm curious!

Antone

rick5150 · Post by **rick5150** » Mon Apr 17, 2006 3:29 pm

Wow. What size ribbon is that? These hats look a bit taller for some reason. The bow placement is inconsistent at best. The first hat's bow sits pretty far back. How do they compare felt-wise? I am drawn to the one on the left....

darthjones · Post by **darthjones** » Mon Apr 17, 2006 3:36 pm

Hi, people. And thanks, Steve, for posting. I actually tried to do it from here but I KNOW that I am missing something very simple in the process - will have to figure it out.

And only the hat on the left is bleached. The one on the right is just a very warm brown.

The one on the left is a relatively recent HJ from 1997 that I got as a Poet and trimmed the brim, blocked it myself. Interestingly, it has been on the stretcher a few times after time spent in the rain and that "mushrooming" has definitely occured - not as pronounced here as it has been at other times but definitely there. Interesting. I trimmed the brim myself and that is not mold on there. Its actually super glue! Those rabbit hats do not stand up to what I put them through without holes developing so I fixed it that way. The only result is that I cannot further pinch or bash it because the glue has a firm hold on where things are.

The hat on the right is a LC era hat that Swales put together. He put the ribbon on, trimmed the brim, and sent it out to me in 92 or so. It has been in the rain and stretched back out as well but never bleached.

And thanks again Steve for posting.

-John

P.S. The ribbon is regular 1 1/2" HJ ribbon from that time.

P.P.S. The effects of diluted bleach on the left make for the exact coloring I saw on the Raiders hat in 1984. HOWEVER - do not bleach your Peters Bros. - his ribbon will turn a whitish purple on you!

Fedora · Post by **Fedora** » Mon Apr 17, 2006 3:59 pm

Thanks to David for sending me these pics. A comparison of the Raiders and newer HJs and one of mine thrown in the mix.

Fedora

darthjones · Post by **darthjones** » Mon Apr 17, 2006 5:07 pm

Wow. Cool photo montage. Amazing too what camera distortion can do - look at the distance between H Ford's ear and the back of his head!

Steve - if you get a chance (I know you're busy satisfying many Indy dreams), have any of your own beaver hats been subject to repeated rains/ soaking and then time in the sun? If so, how did they react? I already know that they do not curl up into a Chico Marx hat like the HJ's but just curious. I have never owned a beaver hat that was thinner or more floppy like what you create and have been hoping that something like what you do would come along for a great while now.

The only beaver hats I have are two cowboy hats (thick) and a Peters Bros. I. Jones which is also too thick and stiff. They more so "conform" to my head than shrink. When they get a little snug I put them back on the stretcher and push them back out against their changes and the results have been perfect.

My Peters Bros. though did not take repeated, post-rain stretching very well and tore along the tight pinch in front. I could have been a little more careful though instead of rushing things.

Anyway, I should be working now too and am here instead. Stalling is fun though.

-John

P.S. Anyone else - have you had your AB literally soaked yet? What happened?

whiskyman · Post by **whiskyman** » Mon Apr 17, 2006 5:59 pm

Wow, those HJs look so un-Indy, it's really worrying. They especially look look so very inlike anthing from Raiders. The word @#$% springs to mind

Antone · Post by **Antone** » Mon Apr 17, 2006 6:42 pm

darthjones wrote: P.S. Anyone else - have you had your AB literally soaked yet? What happened?

Well, the short answer is "not much." I've been wearing my ABs daily for the last few months and today is maybe the third time in as many months that I've seen the sun clearly. I've had both hats on during days when walking three blocks left me soaked from the knees down because those were the only parts of me my trench coat didn't cover. All that happens is that the felt gets a little more maleable, so I use downpour soakings to make the pinch a little more crisp and put a little curl back into the brim. In short, the ABs get a little more weathered looking, but I've yet to see any serious change of shape that I didn't intentionally put in myself.

Thanks again for showing those hats to us felt junkies! It still amazes me how one or two little changes will make a hat look very Raiders or very not. I figure that the way my AB looks very different depending on the angle, lighting, and miniscule changes in the bash just makes it more screen accurate!

Antone

Indiana Jerry · Post by **Indiana Jerry** » Mon Apr 17, 2006 7:32 pm

darthjones wrote:P.S. Anyone else - have you had your AB literally soaked yet? What happened?

I've gotten my SOAKED twice. Rained on many times, kinda wet several times, but only truly soaked twice.

My liner got a bit brown...ew...and it got very loose and big when wet, and sat on my ears.

But once it dried it fit fine again. If you are asking if it tapered at all...I don't think so, but I'm was a bit worried. It probably did a bit, but only slightly. Hard to tell. It did get supersoft and pliable, but the hat is fine.

AFTER it dried the first time, I saw Steve's advice to leave it upside down on the crown until it dried...I had it on the brim the first time. That's why I'm a wee bit paranoid that it tapered a bit - proabably my fault. But I noticed since then that leaving it upside down when drying does help square off the crown.

BendingOak · Post by **BendingOak** » Mon Apr 17, 2006 7:35 pm

I had mine over a year. It seen a few days of light rain. This weeked my Ab got about a houe of rain ( not to heavy). Let it sit to dry and was just fine. I did reshape it a bit.

RNomura · Post by **RNomura** » Mon Apr 17, 2006 10:37 pm

John,

Nice to see some of your old hats again. I remember the first one you ever got, the one with the lighter ribbon. Here are photos of my 1987 Poet which I got, thanks to you!

http://members.aol.com/rnomura/indy_hat2.jpg/

http://members.aol.com/rnomura/indy_hat3.jpg/

darthjones · Post by **darthjones** » Tue Apr 18, 2006 12:48 am

Hey, people. Yes, these are Swales Indy hats. Not pictured of course is the one I had from 1984 which, I have to say, was exactly like the one hat here pictured on the left. One of you said it looks very "un-Indy" but I'll tell you - when I saw the Raiders hat in person in 1984 (which had an HJ address in it according to the then archivist David Craig) I was blown away (i.e. had my bubble burst) by how much it simply looked like a hat. Really. I VERY much agree with Steve that many of us are over-thinking this thing. And the felt was the same.

It did have some mushrooming by the way.

By the way - anyone see the hat that was auctioned off in Los Angeles in the 90's? There are pictures of it on the web. I will search about.

I do have another HJ from about 1993 and the felt is horrible (not pictured). That is why they switched companies according to Swales. The original company they had been using forever turned sour. Again, that is according to Swales and in person in London. We talked in the shop for almost an hour. He said too that they were cutting corners by taking one basic size of hat and simply stretching it out to make larger sizes. HJ was so taken aback by this that they sold the @#$% ones for only 50 pounds at the time to clear them out. Swales said that he then corrected the situation by locating ALL of the original blocks and had them sent to the new company.

The metal block stretchers pictured in another thread are not the blocks he was referring to. He was talking about the wooden ones used to make them. The metal stretchers so recently mentioned are obviously not used to make hats but, for all I know, could be a step of some sort that I/we have never heard about to further shape them. A mystery.

The Swales conversation was in 1999 but referred to a time about 3 years prior.

Tangent - I am thinking now that the Cairo hat was put on a stretcher at some point or sat on or something. The only way to get that mushrooming is through INTENSE distress in my opinion. It looks the way it does from getting worked over, thats for sure. ???

One thing that is VERY interesting - look at the documentaries where Terry Leonard and Harrison Ford are side by side, each with their HJ's - we need some photo comparisons of this. Y'all have it on video/ disc.

I should have taken pics. with me wearing the hat. That is when its character shows up. Down the road.

By the way - for those of you who have the ILM archives walk through tape, the Indy hat with the blue card in the brim says "Donovan's Appt." in it/on it. It is the hat from that interior sequence.

And hey, Ron. I can't open your pics. Don't know why. Can you post them directly? True, that is something I have not figured out how to do yet (others snicker) but would love to check them out.

Hm. This is fun.

RNomura · Post by **RNomura** » Tue Apr 18, 2006 12:57 am

John,

I was trying to post my photos directly, but I can't seem to be able to it either.

~Ron

Dutch_jones · Post by **Dutch_jones** » Tue Apr 18, 2006 1:00 am

RNomura wrote:John,

Nice to see some of your old hats again. I remember the first one you ever got, the one with the lighter ribbon. Here are photos of my 1987 Poet which I got, thanks to you!

http://members.aol.com/rnomura/indy_hat2.jpg/

http://members.aol.com/rnomura/indy_hat3.jpg/

1987 poet
this looks very last crusade to me , this baby was ahead of its time

Indiana Jerry · Post by **Indiana Jerry** » Tue Apr 18, 2006 1:02 am

Remove the trailing '/' and put it in img tags, like this:

RNomura wrote:

RNomura · Post by **RNomura** » Tue Apr 18, 2006 1:26 am

Jerry,

Thanks for posting my photos for me. I **** at html.

As soon as I can successfully do this on my own, I'll post pics of my other
old HJs. What constitutes a vintage hat? Pre-1990s?

~Ron

darthjones · Post by **darthjones** » Tue Apr 18, 2006 2:01 am

By the way - does anyone here have a good picture of the I. Jones hat in the Smithsonian? Here is a link to one of the images of it but you have to click on it. There are other pics. of it on the web:

CLICK HERE

Indiana Jerry · Post by **Indiana Jerry** » Tue Apr 18, 2006 2:25 am

Hmm...I KNOW I've seen it posted here, but now I can't find it...this thread is sorta it: viewtopic.php?t=9069&highlight=smithsonian

But I know there's a better one...hmm...DARN! All the older strings have expired pics....grrrr....

darthjones · Post by **darthjones** » Tue Apr 18, 2006 5:54 am

Well, thats fxxxgxn' weird, the link you sent me. The hat in the link I posted looks different from the hat in the one you just gave me. The ribbons looks differently-sized.

Well, maybe it was addressed in another thread but I was not around at the time.

Thanks though!

Post by **Mike** » Tue Apr 18, 2006 8:38 am

darthjones wrote:By the way - does anyone here have a good picture of the I. Jones hat in the Smithsonian?

I have a few somewhere as I've been a few times. I'll have to dig them up (pardon the pun) and post 'em. That is unless the Mrs. already got to scrapbooking them!

BTW, I know these've been posted before, but as Steve mentions the HJ I own and has used as a basis of his fact finding, I thought I'd post some pics again. The mushrooming you see in the front shot is due to a smaller hat fitting tightly on a bigger mellon.

This leads me to believe that the Cairo hat must've shrunk a bit due to sweat/water/abuse.

darthjones · Post by **darthjones** » Tue Apr 18, 2006 4:41 pm

Wow. That is a great-looking HJ. How new/old is it? And to me that looks a lot like a "new" Raiders hat - like the one outside the temple in Raiders opening sequences. Very cool.

Thanks!

BendingOak · Post by **BendingOak** » Tue Apr 18, 2006 6:09 pm

How tall is that crown???

Antone · Post by **Antone** » Tue Apr 18, 2006 7:53 pm

Mike wrote: BTW, I know these've been posted before, but as Steve mentions the HJ I own and has used as a basis of his fact finding, I thought I'd post some pics again.

Wow, that's a great hat! Thanks for posting those pics, I hadn't seen them before. If the crease was just a little deeper front and back, you'd see more dome on the top from the side and more back tilt; I'd bet my AB that you could get a nearly perfect look for any scene in Raiders out of that hat with slight modifications to the bash, plus a little distressing...

Mike wrote:The mushrooming you see in the front shot is due to a smaller hat fitting tightly on a bigger mellon. This leads me to believe that the Cairo hat must've shrunk a bit due to sweat/water/abuse.

This just confirms that the secret of the Cairo mushroom was the tight fit of that hat, accentuated by the natural and artificial distressing during filming (for me at least). I've heard from several people that HJs tend to run quite a bit on the small side for their listed size. It's great to see an old HJ that has acheived a good cairo look without massive artificial means necessary to get it there though!

Any idea what year that hat was made?

Antone

Post by **Mike** » Wed Apr 19, 2006 9:04 am

It was one of two hats I bought from Lee Keppler in '89. The first one was butchered by a local hat guy when I thought it was too large (of course now it would've been a PERFECT fit. GRRRR!

) Actually the ribbon on it is from the first one, I believe.

I'm not sure what year it was made, but common perception (from Lee and Fedora among others) is that it may be a left over from years prior. This is the hat that Fedora, and Lee examined to source color for their lines. The liner has a white logo with marooon lettering.

Mike

BendingOak · Post by **BendingOak** » Wed Apr 19, 2006 10:42 am

How tall is that crown??

A couple of HJs

A couple of HJs

Hat

hat

indy