Dirty Billy's Hats

[CJDaley]

Re: Dirty Billy's Hats

One thing REALLY puzzled me and I failed to ask for clarification. He said, "I buy/get blanks" and make the hats. I didn't know if he was referring to blank hats and he only shapes them ? Blank felts that he makes them from ? Or what...

A brief look into the hat industry of the mid-19th Century will reveal that most hatters (both small shops and large factories) imported* blanks as raw material, then did the shaping and finishing. As early as the 1840s small hat shops found it more economical to get blanks in rather than try to start from scratch.

*Imported from places like Danbury, CT and other hat production towns in New England.

At least he travels to some events. Unlike many other vendors. He even comes down to Resaca, every now and then. I would love to see more of the authentic vendors attending mainstream events. People could REALLY have a side by side comparison to the sutler row junk.

If you know of some good events down South, out West or up North I'd love to know about them. (Basically anything outside the mid-Atlantic) Better vendors are looking for new venues to display our work, but remember that sometimes it's also a matter of being able to get in as many of us are unable to obtain invitations.

You have to give him credit for the time and work he put in over the years to be able to produce such a wide historical variety of headgear.

I look up to Billy as a business person. He's done a great job of growing his business and expanding his product line. He's always on the hunt for unique originals and it seems that every time I've popped into his store he's showing me another new product. Not only from other time periods, but from the Civil War. New Contract Caps, new hardee hats, new hardware, slouch hats. I've also seen some prototypes of some ventilators for forage caps that I'm sure you'll all want to pick up.