Club Obi Wan

Alright -

I had an exchange of Private Messages with the seller of the hat last night. Things were initially a little tense, I think, as I feared they would be. No one wants this kind of friction between members, but I believe everything went well enough when I assurred him all I am looking for is honest answers and that I still want the hat. I asked if it was okay to quote him, and this is what he wrote:

Jeremy......
I am an aficionado, not an expert. I cannot tell you how many stitches Steve uses to sew the sweatband together. I can only swear to the fact that I purchased the hat that you now have from The Adventurebilt Hat Co., and it was not modified in any manner while I owned the hat. It was received in the exact same condition that it was in when I sent it to you. To my knowledge, the hat was made by Steve Delk and is 100% Adventurebilt. If it was altered or modified in any manner, it was before I received the hat.

Please fell free to post my responses, or I will gladly post them myself. I would welcome the opportunity to offer more, but I've told you all that I know. I bought the hat and ,after a year, I sold it to you. I would also repeat my offer to refund your money if you are not completely satisfied.

This is the straight scoop from my side, and I hope this is of some help.

Randall

This was the second in a brief series of PMs, the first reading essentially the same, just a bit more terse. I wrote back asking if I could quote him and he came back with what is written above.

It sounds like the next step is to send it to Steve for authentication now.

Regards! Michaelson

Michaelson -
Not to be argumentative but I'd prefer to say: I'd like to send the hat to Steve to find out what's going on with this particular hat. Semantics, I know, but saying "authentication" sounds like I'm pointing fingers .

As soon as I hear something directly from Fedora regarding how he'd like to handle it, I'll send the hat off. I haven't heard anything solid from him other than what he's posted thusfar, and I want to be 100% sure he knows it's coming, etc... I'd hate for it to get lost in the vast swamp of other jobs he's got going on right now.

Hopefully I'll hear from Fedora, either on this thread, via PM, or whatever...by Monday so I can have the hat on the road. It'll be good to put this thing to bed.

True, totally wrong choice of words on my part. Sorry. Nothing was meant by it.

I MEANT it's now time for Steve to look it over.

Regards! Michaelson

I still don't understand what claim you have.

You bought the hat secondhand and regardless of the condition that the seller received the hat, it was his responsibility to speak to Steve, not yours. Steve did not receive a dime from you on this hat and quite frankly, owes you nothing. This hat is definately not Steve's work and he has said that he inspected every hat that his apprentice worked on before sending it out. This reads as if you are bullying Steve into fixing the hat free of charge, which has happened more than once and with other vendors around here, too. If I'm reading this wrong, then I take it back, but it certainly seems that way.

Dave

DR Ulloa wrote:I still don't understand what claim you have.

You bought the hat secondhand and regardless of the condition that the seller received the hat, it was his responsibility to speak to Steve, not yours. Steve did not receive a dime from you on this hat and quite frankly, owes you nothing. This hat is definately not Steve's work and he has said that he inspected every hat that his apprentice worked on before sending it out. This reads as if you are bullying Steve into fixing the hat free of charge, which has happened more than once and with other vendors around here, too. If I'm reading this wrong, then I take it back, but it certainly seems that way.

Dave

I have a hatter here in town who will square this away for me in one day for under twenty dollars; near the same cost as what it would be for me to send the hat to Mississippi, less the wait. I'm not remotely interested in "bullying" anyone to do anything. My primary interest right now, and the same interest I think Mr. Delk would have in this situation, is I have something that is purportedly representative of the work of the Adventurebilt hat company that both Steve Delk and myself believe is sub-par. I'm sure Steve is as interested as I am to know how and/or why such a thing would be. As I said, this has nothing to do with money: Paris Hatter is within spitting distance of my workplace. I could drop it by in the mornig and pick it up the following morning when I get off and be out about twenty bones ( the last time I had a sweatband replaced, it was twenty-five, and that included the band itself ). Righting the ribbon is something I could either do myself or have done at Paris as well, likely piggy-backing on the sweat fix. So you see, there is no question of money, etc... Further, there is technically nothing to be "fixed" in the first place. It's simply the fact that the quality of this sewing is now up to what I and others would expect to see from AB. The point is to find out the "whys and wherefores".
I've been completely forthcoming in my posts, as it would appear all the participants have. I gave solid reviews at the beginning of this thread to the AB Raiders I own. Solid enough that, as I said before, I wanted to spend a goodly sum on another AB. There's nothing incindiary going on here, just questions that want answers. I'm sure Fedora is as interested as I am. I'm sure he does not want this being representative of AB.
So what am I supposed to do? Leave it as it is, then someone comes along who knows a thing or two about hats and says, "Hey, is that an AB?'' or "Lemme have a look at that...", then sees this construction. This is the impression he gets of Adventurebilt. I think that would be unfair to Steve and the AB line, Don't you?

Well, once again just offering my opinion, I think your proposed plan of just taking it to your local hatter for the 'fix' is the best one, as you've posted excellent photos for Steve to study, and though a bit of a mystery, there has been enough proposed 'possibilities' offered by Steve as to how that occurred.

So far it's the ONLY one we've seen come to light like this, so personally I believe it's one of those rare exceptions to the rule regarding the AB name and quality, so in this case I think your plan of just taking it to your hatter for the fixes proposed to both sweat AND ribbon is a sound one.

You'll also have your hat for your Vegas trip too!

I'd say 'lock and load' on your plan. You've done good by Steve for alerting him to the situation in a clear and concise manner, and I think have handled the research to the end very well.

Regards! Michaelson