FOR NEWBIES - "Which hat should I get?"

[Strider]

[Items posted are strickly the opinion of the writer, and not necessarily that of the owner, webmaster, administrators, or moderators of the Club Obi Wan/Indygear.com. — Moderator]

First of all, welcome to COW.

This thread is intended as a reference tool for those who are new to the ranks of Club Obi-Wan. As tenured members, we are often asked which hat(s) is/ are "the best", or asked for recommendations on a future hat purchase. The short answer is that there simply is no one hat that is the be all, end all Indiana Jones fedora for everyone (no matter what anyone else says).

The fact is, there are lots of hats to choose from on the market, and one could spend hours picking through them, and listening to the testimonials and recommendations of other COW members. What it really comes down to is: you must choose; but choose wisely. How can one choose wisely if they aren't informed? Moreover, if they aren't informed objectively?

That's where I come in. My name is Strider, welcome to my thread.

Question 1: Money

".. Money. Get back. I'm alright, yeah, keep your hands offa my stack. .." -Pink Floyd

The first question you need to ask yourself is: "How much money have I got to spend?" This is the first step in determining which hat is right for you. Do you have a lot to spend, or are you on a budget? If money is no object for you, then this isn't even something you have to worry about. Be wary, if you're on a budget, many (read: a whole lot) of people will tell you to "save up and get [~this~] hat." There are lids that are fan favorites around these parts, hats whose names are instantly on the lips of those many people when asked which hat may be right for someone else. Hats they say "can't be beat". What nicely suits one may not necessarily suit the other. If you have an amount of money that you want to spend (or is all you can afford) in mind, then stick with that. Ultimately, you're going to have to decide what hat is right for you, not someone else.

Question 2: Preference

When you watch the Indiana Jones movies, which of the movies does Indy's fedora look the best to you? Raiders of the Lost Ark? Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom? Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade? You decide. This is important, because some hats are better suited to replicate how the hat looked in one film than they are to replicate how it looked in another, and this just brings you a step closer to choosing the hat that is right for you. In this case, it's all about personal preference. I can't say this enough: no one is going to be able to tell you what style is right for someone else. Only the buyer can make that distinction.

Question 3: Useage

What are you going to use this hat for? Will it be a hat purely for costume? Or, do you want a hat that you can really wear out in the field, and expect to hold up? You wouldn't want to buy a 500$ dress hat if you were going to be dragged behind a truck, would you?

Question 4: Speed of service

Can you wait for things without biting your nails down to the nub? Waiting for gear is standard operating procedure when it comes to this hobby, but the wait for some products are longer than others. Several things factor into why this is the case, but I won't get into that here, as the reasons vary from vendor to vendor. The long and short of it is: how long can you wait for your hat before you go stir crazy? Lead time may end up factoring in to which vendor you choose, so it is an important question you should ask yourself, and ask any vendors you're interested in purchasing from through PM or e-mail.

Question 5: Felt quality

Obviously, everybody wants a quality hat for their money. The question is, how high of a quality do you want? This depends on the answers to some of the above questions, like how much money you have to spend, what you're going to be doing with the hat, etc. There are members here who are perfectly happy having bought lower quality hats that are shunned, for lack of a better word, by the rest of the community. Maybe someone doesn't want to spend more than 50$ on a hat they are only going to wear once or twice a year. Who knows? The crux of the biscuit is that the hat suited them. Others have spent several hundreds of dollars on very high quality felt hats for the same purpose. When all was said and done, they were happy with their purchase, and so should you be. In the end, that's all that's important.

Once you've gone over these things in your mind, that's going to bring you to...

Question 6: What's out there?

Hopefully, you've got a rough idea of what you want now, so, what hats are there to choose from? In this thread: viewtopic.php?t=10903, Dalexs provides a good list of offerings, along with other useful information that is not included here to avoid repetition.

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(Moderator's Note: If you look at the hat options shown in the link posted directly above, you can enter them into the search function found at the top of the page. You can also read through the many threads in the Fedora Section and glean mountains of information. Feel free to ask questions, but if you do a lot of research first, you'll be able to ask more specific questions and members will be able to better answer your questions. Good luck! — Moderator)