You've spoiled us Fedora, for which I am entirely grateful.
Well, its a good bunch of folks to spoil if you know what I mean. It was just me doing my hobby, and my attempt at that time to provide you guys with what I was making and wearing, without going bankrupt in order to own a pure beaver hat. Back then, I was really put off by the prices being charged for quality hats, especially once I found out the markup was a few thousand per cent on these hats. Just did not seem right to me, at the time. I still see alot of greed in the hat business, with the pricing, but my attitude has toned down quite a bit. I still get irked when I see some hatters charging 1500 bucks for a hat that has 175 bucks of materials in them, but these guys live by the rule "if I price my hats high, they will be seen by the public as much better than the other, lower priced hats" I think this is pretty common though, not only in hats but other things as well. But, I sure don't have to like it.
If you want to take several trips to Europe each year, and vacation in the hot, popular spots, go into hatting. Then, buy yourself the factory machinery that can pump out a hundred hats a day, pay a couple of girls a low wage to do your sewing, and you can use the factory equipment to make your hats, as you sit and watch it do its job. You never put a single hat together, your hired help does. And then you advertise your hats as custom made, as this wording increases the price expoentially. And you price the hats with a huge markup, and the shuck and jive will make you rich. That in a nutshell is the custom hat business today.
There are a few exceptions, but they are rare.
Is there anything wrong with this? Probably not, as it is the American Way. But, it irks me personally.
For me, if I am gonna spend really big money on a hat, the hatter at least needs to make the hat himself, and not just count his money at the end of the day. You hear of such and such hatter being a Master Hatter, but what you don't know, is his skills are seldom used in the production of his hats. Once he became a master hatter, he hired folks off the street to run his production machines that USED to be only seen in the huge hat factories like the old Stetson company. When he learned to be a Master hatter, he learned to make hats by hand, if he trained under a real master hatter. Then he opens his shop, and has his employees make the hats using high volume equipment. I doubt that some even see the hats that leave the shop. There is nothing wrong or bad about a good factory hat. But high volume equipment was invented to generate loads of hats that could be priced at what folks could afford. When you use that method to make hats, but price them like production equipment was NOT used, I do have a problem with that. Especially when the hats are billed as handmade, or custom hats. And the master hatter probably never even looked at what his employees made.
Back in the days of the original Stetson company, the master hatters worked up in the front shop, and not the backshop. They used hand tools to create the special, custom hats that were sold along with the production hats. The master hatters actually worked!!! Today, you just tag your shop with the master hatter moniker,and you don't work. You don't even make hats. You spend your time flying here and there, smoking the cuban cigars, and drinking martinis. But, that is not the way it used to be. Granted, there are a few exceptions, as I can't paint the entire business with one broad brush. But the number of master hatters that actually make their own hats might be surprising. Ok, my treatise for the day.
Time to get to work. Fedora
Thats it. I just added a another hat to the wish list. There's the IM/AB/HJ on the way, an AB Crystal Skull Fedora that I've got to order as soon as I can clear it with my personal appropriations committee (read wife), and an AB Grey Fedora. Must have, MUST HAVE ! So this is how people end up with sooooo many hats isn't it? 
I was warned...
