In the event that anyone here would consider a moder Stetson... the old Nostalgia is being re-released this summer. I remember hearing that this was one of the options some years ago, so I figured the community would like to know.
It will come open crowned with a 2 1/2" brim, wide ribbon, and will be available in a brown (mink) and a gray (caribou), as well as black. I might even have a 5 1/2" crown, too.
I saw one of the old Nostalgias and I've wanted one ever since. I don't expect this to be a top-notch hat, and far from a perfect Indy hat, but it'll be an itch I never expected to scratch!
Of course, why would you want a close enough when you could get The Federation probably cheaper. Nostalgia is a good design though. Not too many modern fedoras with old school dimensions. Brims a little short for accuracy, but I like 2.5 brims. With a reblock and new ribbon, you could easily get it closer than close enough.
I have a Stetson Nostalgia. It was a very good hat, and reasonably priced. When I ordered mine, they were on clearance and I got it for like $35. I don't know if these are going to be built the same way mine was, but if they are, just a word of caution - don't get it wet! Whatever dye they use will run when the hat gets wet (mine did), and it tapered really bad too. That's why I said it WAS a very good hat.
Yeah, dyed felt is never really much of a problem, but powdered-in color like some of the Stetsons comes out very easily. I had an old Stetson fedora that almost totally lost its color in a frog-strangler once upon a time, not to mention ruining my shirt..................
My daughters STILL remember the day old Dad came to walk them home from school and half way home we got caught in that same frog strangler of a rain storm.
After a few minutes I could feel the water soak through the felt and start running down the middle of my face. My eldest asked 'Daddy, are you bleeding or something?"
I had a small river of dye running down between my eyes. They laughed all the way home.
Thing that I have always thought SO odd was the fact this was not the first heavy rain that hat had been through. Why it suddenly decided to give up the dye during THAT deluge has always puzzled me.
Okay you all, this remides me of a funny story. I grew up about 45 minutes from the Stetson outlet in St. Joseph Missouri, and in my late teens (late 1980's) had gotten in to muzzle loading through a Boy Scout camp experience a few years before. Anyway, I had bought a couple of felt bodies out of a box of irregulars in the back of the store, sewn my own sweat bands inside of them, and made them in to "trapper hats". (Or what I knew of trapper hats at that age). I kept one and gave one to my Dad as a birthday gift.
Well, later that summer we went on a canoe trip with my family and we wore our new hats on the river. The morning push off was gorgeous, but about the middle of our trip down river we found ourselves in quite a torrential downpour. So for safety sake we all pulled off the river and waited for it to go by, and while we were standing there getting drenched, it get's brought to our attention that both of our faces are now a blue-ish/ purple color as the dye from our hats was running down our faces. So much for keeping the rain off. We spent the rest of the rest of the day and part of the next in 'blue face', and when I got home I dunked both hats in a bucket of salt water to set the dye. It hasn't happened since (not that I've had as good a rain storm to test them in), but I don't know if I'd try it with a fedora unless you REALLY want to distress it. LOL
Up to now I guess I always thought is was because the hat's were unfinished that all the dye ran, I guess I know now it is a Stetson characteristic.
It might not hurt. Now you might forever have the 'Raiders-just jumped in the river running from Hovitos' bash to your hat from then on, but hey, at least you'll be an individual, and the dye from your hat shouldn't run down your face anymore in the rain.
It's too bad really, it's such an underappreciated style. I wonder why no one has their new AB's done that way?
Travner Ravenweird wrote:It might not hurt. Now you might forever have the 'Raiders-just jumped in the river running from Hovitos' bash to your hat from then on, but hey, at least you'll be an individual, and the dye from your hat shouldn't run down your face anymore in the rain.
It's too bad really, it's such an underappreciated style. I wonder why no one has their new AB's done that way?
I couldn't remember who took over the actual production. Thanks! 
