This hat here is dead stock, as recieved, EXCEPT I did a fast dimensional cut on the brim. It is 2 7/8 by 2 5/8 now.
First a side view.
And the opposite side view. But notice that on the other view there is no discernible bulging on the back, but from the bow side you can see a bulge. It happened when I turned the hat.
Here is the front view, with the stretcher it is resting on giving it some taper. The felt is so soft, it is hard to get a good pic without some distortion, or taper. And this shot reminds me alot of the Raven hat, where Indy is by the mantle(I think) probably a PR photo we are all familiar with.
And of course the back view as I always include.
I want to bring up a very important point. If you buy a real vintage hat, it is very taper resistant, even if you get it soaked. But there is a down side to this as well. If you buy a vintage hat that has blocked in taper, and you try to reblock it to get rid of the factory taper, you are wasting your time. The vintage hats remember the original shape so well that it will NOT retain the new blockshape!!! It may look changed, coming off of the block, but it will quickly recall its original block shape, and morph back into it. To date, I have no technique that will instill a new block shape into a real vintage hat. So, keep this in mind when buying vintage hats as canidates for vintage Indy fedoras.
Therefore, look for vintage hats that came with an Indyesque blockshape to begin with. You will find that some vintage hats have felt that is remarkably similiar in looks to the Raiders fedora. It "moves" like the Raiders fedora, and this is in part due to a lack of stiffener in a rabbit hat.
The hat above moves like the Raiders fedora appears to move on film, but actually is a higher quality felt, IMO. This is just using the film as reference, with the texture of the hat taken into consideration. The above hat is actually a tightly felted rabbit felt, unlike the Raiders fedora, and feels like a real vintage Borsa. It is a very mellow felt. No fuzzies.
I have been tempted to sit on this hat, and beat the heck out of it, but have not done so. Mostly because I like some of my hats to look less distressed. So, I will let this one age and distress naturally, like Michaelson does! Fedora
before the revamp.
](./images/smilies/Indy_wall.gif "Brick wall"){kind=small}
