As soon as I put my hands on it, I knew it was a keeper, but I couldn't resist converting it to a fedora either. The crown height (6" unbashed 5"-5.5" creased) and brim length (2.75" all around) just seemed too perfect for a conversion, considering most homburgs seem to be a little stingier with their dimensions. Also, the hat even fit me perfectly to boot.
Here's what it looked like before.
I didn't really do that much to it actually. A little bit of ironing and steaming to make it a little more flexible (The Fedora Lounge folks are gonna kill me). In fact, the pictures from above are post modification.
Here's the after shots.
See, I'm not that crazy am I. It really just looks like a really nice fedora.
I didn't use any steam on the crown, just did a really loose cold bash. I think it works better than a Raiders bash in this case. However though, I did do a slight turn just to give it a little more flavor with the brim.
The 43 mm ribbon makes the crown seem a little shorter than it really is, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.
I'm still clueless as to what the company Emerson is or when this hat was made. The sender stuck some newprint from '62 in there, but I don't know if it has anything to do with when it was made. There seems to be a complete lack of info on the net about the company or where the hat was bought from (The Young Men's Shop in Portage-Ebensburg, PA). There's also a trademark for something called Cravanette. Another clue is that everything is hand stitched with no trace of glue.
