Club Obi Wan

I am wanting to start looking for a Raiders style hat to start my collection. I want to know what hats to look for at thrift shops and such to get the right look. Since the hat would be worn little I can afford to pay the high prices of the new hats I have seen available from this forum. I guess my only hope is to get lucky at the thrift stores!

Welcome aboard, Ryan! I take you man you can't afford to pay a lot of money for a new hat. Well, the first question is how much are you willing to spend on a hat? There are some good choices at around or under the $100 mark (namely the Akubra Federation - standard model). For just a little bit more, you can get a rabbit AdventureBilt styled to your liking. Though you'll find that many of us here speak ill of wool felt hats, they are, arguably, less expensive than a good fur felt hat. If you really are planing to wear it very little, then you may be happy enough with this, though I'd treat it with scotch guard and take care not to wear it in the rain, since it will shrink and taper on you pretty easily. But if even these options are too pricey, I completely understand. I used to be there myself!

You can find good stuff at thrift shops, antique stores, and vintage clothing stores if you keep a sharp eye out. You'd want to look for a hat with a nice brim and a tall crown (the top part of the hat that is not the brim). Chances are that you'll have to restyle the hat you find. If you carry a pic of the Indy hat you like with you, you can use it for reference. Keep in mind, though, that at some antique and vintage shops, you could pay enough for the hat that you may as well buy a new one. Also, if you find it in a thrift store, you'll want to get get hat cleaned, and that could cost you a small bit of cash to do so. Either way, you have to be very patient as it may take you a long time to find something that works for you, but they ARE out there! Good luck!

bink

As I posted elsewhere: Once you get a vintage fedora... we can give you a short list of people who can clean and reblock it for you.

Art Fawcett at Vintage Silhouettes has the "Bogart Block 'N Bash" down cold and can take your fedora apart and put it back together with the same liner and thread them back together to make it look like it just came from the original manufacturer.

Our buddy Steve can do the same thing with the “Jones Block ‘N Bash…” both are artists in their own right with different styles. Depends on what you’re looking for.

I can only guess that you’re searching the Vintage wear shops for sport, because once you’ve calculated gas, milage, wear and tear and your own time you’ll have spent more trying to find a vintage fedora to meet your needs then you would have if you bought an Akubra or an Adventurebilt.

As far as what to look for: Check out the quality of the felt. How was the fedora stored? Are there a lot of moth-holes? Larve’ nests? Mold? It’s just like anything else used that you would buy… how well was it taken care of before it was put up for sale.