Most of those guys buy vintage, not necessarily because of the quality, but the price. And nothing wrong with that. Some buy new hats, but not that many, when compared to the membership there. And it paid off for me in spades. This is a vintage Borsalino, from the 40's or 50's. with a 2 7/8 brim!!!!! Of course, I had to have it in my vintage collection that only includes the very, very fine vintage hats, like Knox, and Cavanagh and the 10x Stetsons. I got rid of the run of the mill vintage hats a few years ago.
The world's finest hat, or one of the finests hats came out of Borsalino many years ago, when they took great pride in their hatmaking. They even aged the fur prior to using it to make hats. Enough of the praise and background.
It does have the bound brim, but I detest em'. So, it is coming off as soon as I get the hat. Other than that, it will remain stock. And yes, I will wear it, but only a few times a year. It will spend most of its life in a box full of moth balls.
I have a deep appreciation for the felt and the construction of these sort of hats, so I mostly just use them for admiration pieces. This one will replace my current Borsa, that came with a short crown and short brim, that I only kept because while not my style of hat, it did represent Borsalino in their hey days. I now have a proper Borsalino, to take its place. I am in great antiscipation of it arriving here this week, so I can sit and admire it. Oh, its my size as well! And the color is a lightish brown, although the pics don't show this well. Fedora
Steve, as much as you hate bound brims, I urge you to please keep it on the hat, especially if you just plan on storing it for your collection, anyway. It keeps the true vintage feel and detail Borsalino put on it in the first place. It'd be like striping all the hardware and pickups of an original gold top Les Paul just because you didn't like it. (I know you're a guitar buff like me, so I figure I'll speak in words I'm sure you'll appreciate! 
This company took extreme pride in producing very high quality dress hats once upon a time. So, if you ever get a chance to get a real vintage one, buy it!!! 
Thanks, Steve. Now I can sleep at night. 
So make sure the sound is on when you watch it. I've done this hundreds of times for entertainment, and as you can hear, it's still noisy. I can get pops from any hat, but this one's the loudest. 
Hence, I've taken my chances with ebay, craigslist, etc. I've ready about too many disappointments, seen too many 1960's/1970's hats advertised as 30's/40's, to bid on much unless I feel at least half-way confident in it. I've had some disappoinments and some nice surprises. My most worn hat, a brown Borsalino with an open crown of 6 inches and a brim width of 3 inches, came off a craigslist ad in the LA area. It arrived rather crumpled up in the shipping box, but after spending some time shaping it with a little steam, it came out looking like NOS. Lots of old hats out there, but when you have to find one that is in a larger size, a higher crown, and a wider brim...and still in good shape...the numbers drop drastically and the prices jump! This particular Borsalino happened to be the first hat in my possession with a bound brim...but it is about the same shade as the felt, so that probably made it easier for me...I didn't particularly like the bound brim thing at that point.
