Most people who aren’t familiar with felt hats think that all felt is the same. Not true. There is wool felt and then there is fur felt. Now I’ll state the obvious…wool felt is made of wool and fur felt is made of fur. Like I said, it’s stating the obvious but for some people they never knew there was a difference and that’s ok. That’s why the “Hats 101″ series of blog posts.

Both varieties of felt hats offer a stiff version and a soft version. The only difference here is the amount of stiffener or shellac added to the felt during the production of the hat.

Within the fur felt hat category there are different kinds of fur used. Most use rabbit or wild hare with the better quality hats using beaver. Most modern manufacturers have their own secret recipe of a blend of furs. As mentioned in a previous post from a few days ago some hat manufacturers are experimenting with Buffalo fur and Kangaroo fur for their felt western hats.

So how do you tell the difference between the different quality fur felts? That’s a discussion for another “Hats 101″ post so be sure to come back and visit.

Class dismissed. Go enjoy your weekend.

Aaron

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 26th, 2008 at 1:54 am and is filed under Hats, Hats 101. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.