Dating a Raymond Hudd Hat

[NinaN]

Hello again ladies. Still trying to figure out my hat birthdays. Can anyone help me date this gorgeous Raymond Hudd hat? I know that the number inside means it's the 29th hat that he made that year, but other than that, I'm not sure what the GMB or S mean.

Hoping to list it on Etsy, but not sure if it's old enough to be considered vintage. The shape looks pretty contemporary.

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[Rue_de_la_Paix]

Hi,

Yes, it is definitely vintage enough. The shape is classic, so in that sense it can be contemporary or vintage. It is made of a nice sisal straw, looks like a parisisal straw to me in the photos. While I have not done a great deal of research on Hudd, I am definitely a huge fan. I believe that label on your hat is the last incarnation of the Hudd labels, it is not one of his early labels, so perhaps your hat is from the late 70s to 1980s. My guess is that the GMB is the style abbreviation and the S is for the material (straw). But I could be wrong as this is purely a guess.

 

[NinaN]

Barbara to my rescue again. Thank you! It is SO beautiful. That's an ostrich feather, right? I had to buy a special box from Staples to mail it and I'm going to package it in an old Knox New York hat box that I hate to part with but I want to protect it as much as possible. I think I've come to the conclusion that those styrofoam popcorn things are probably the best thing to protect hats with when I mail them w/o a hat box. Any suggestions on that? I was told by a Broadway costume designer that all hats should be stored upside down, so I'm learning something new every day.

 

[NinaN]

An update on this hat for those of you who might later want to know how to date a Raymond Hudd hat from the label. I contacted a woman who is a biographer of sorts of Raymond Hudd and she had this to say about my hat and the meaning of the letters and numbers:

"This is from 1999. He started putting the letter after the number in 1981, I think, but no hats made that year, so 82 is B. I need to look it up in the morning,

The letters in from of the number are to honor his brothers who had passed away during his lifetime. His remaining brother is still alive, tho getting up there in age now.

He made probably close to to 50,000 hats over the 50years. He had an interesting life, tho not as financially lucrative as the world of hats was on the decline, even when he started. Luckily he hung in there, and had a good start in the first decade."

So basically, 1981 correlates with the letter A, 1982 correlates with the letter B and so on and so forth. This system dates my "S" hat at 1999. Hopes this helps others.

:D
Nina