big mon's hat on ebay

[Red Henry]

Thanks for the explanation. Anyone contact him to see if there's any documentation?

One trouble (even with genuine Monroe items) is that the certificates which went along with the items in Monroe's estate sale did not specify which item you bought! -- the certificate only said that the item (whatever it was) came from the Monroe estate sale-- which meant that even the authenticity of items which came genuinely from the sale may be difficult to prove! -- and also, it means that people can pair such a certificate (or a well-made copy, it was cheap) with any other object and sell it as having come from the sale!

Red

[re simmers]

I 'd buy it, but $9.50 for shipping is a little out of my league.

Also, I wear a size 8.

[woodwizard]

I don't wear cowboy hats anymore or I would jump on that one. What a deal. Oh ... wait a minute that's the shipping not the price.....

[Darryl Wolfe]

Here's the wax it used to sit on

[fishdawg40]

One trouble (even with genuine Monroe items) is that the certificates which went along with the items in Monroe's estate sale did not specify which item you bought! -- the certificate only said that the item (whatever it was) came from the Monroe estate sale-- which meant that even the authenticity of items which came genuinely from the sale may be difficult to prove! -- and also, it means that people can pair such a certificate (or a well-made copy, it was cheap) with any other object and sell it as having come from the sale!

Red

Thanks Red. I had a feeling that things like this would be difficult to document and even if it was "documented" how could you trust it 100%. Also someone pointed out that the seller has a 100% feedback, wow! That's pretty good.

[Gary Hedrick]

Hmmm let's see the foremost authority on this kind of thing that is a a Cafe Member is Tom Isenhour. Why isn't someone asking him......or is he is the seller? He was at the various Monroe auctions and bid on a ton of stuff....

This would go a long way in telling us that it is legit or not

[Keith Erickson]

Looks legit to me. He's been registered since 97 and has over 5 thousand positive feedbacks.

Joe

An old friend of mine from back in NJ had his profile hijacked on ebay. The hijacker then posted started an auction under his name. The item: a 1963 Corvette for a buy now price of $5,000 dollars.

The money wound up in a bank in Romania and that Corvette.......????? What Corvette

[Tom C]

We've seen things like Bill's outdoor bench, Bill's toaster...I would believe this is legit. But I would still not buy it without some sort of authentification as it would do me no good if I tried to sell it one day and can not prove it was his.

[Chad Thorne]

I sent a question about documentation and got the following response:

"Thank you for your inquiry. We purchased the museum from where this hat came. The hat bears his name and came from a museum display. I hope that this answers your question.

Thank you for your interest!

Mike

Mike Safran
c/o Safran's Antiques
1015 Whaley Street
Columbia South Carolina 29201
803-254-8448 "

[sunburst]

We can have little Bill clone start taking lessons from Chris Thile (or Mike Compton?) when he's four. He'll be a monster!

You know how parents have kids and want them to be football players or basketball players and then they turn out to play the clarinet or something?
Well, here's my prediction:
It's only a matter of time until ol' Bill gets cloned, and the young Bill II will be an only child so he can play the guitar if he wants to and won't get stuck with the mandolin. He won't even get good at the guitar though, because he'll get an operation on his crossed eyes and he'll be able to pick up the spin on a baseball and be a champion baseball player. Heck, he'll probably make "the show" and have enough money to buy the original Bill's mandolin, but he won't even be interested...

[mrmando]

Here's the wax it used to sit on

Wow ... it's the Bill & Lester reunion that never happened in real life!

It sure looks like the hat that came off the dummy. I don't think the seller has any proof that Bill himself ever wore this hat. For a guy who was known to favor Stetsons, I'd think any other brand of hat would be suspect. The name in the sweatband could be there to help the museum staff keep the hat with the correct dummy. The itchy gray jacket and skinny tie don't look like anything Bill ever wore either. Notice there's a second hat along with a brown coat & tie in a display case in the background. I'm no expert on hats, but my guess is that THOSE are more likely to be the real thing, and the clothes on the dummy are just an approximation. In most wax museums, the dummies are roped off but still out in the open, where kids can sneeze on them, flies can poop on them, etc. If you had a real artifact you would probably want it better protected than that, so you'd put it behind glass instead of on the dummy.

I like the fact that the dummy's mandolin has the scroll broken off and the top distressed ... looks like "Gibson" has been scratched out of the headstock too! Now there's some authenticity for you! Maybe THAT is Bill's famous second Loar, hiding in plain sight!

Am I to understand that the antique dealer purchased the entire wax museum? Wonder where the rest of the dummy's clothes are? Where's the mandolin? Where's the rest of the Monroe memorabilia in the photo? Why just pick the hat out of the heap?

[Chad Thorne]

Well, here's the seller's website: http://www.collect1.com/

They seem reputable enough, but I still haven't heard anything that proves that this hat sat on Bill Monroe's (real, not wax) head...

[journeybear]

You know how parents have kids and want them to be football players or basketball players and then they turn out to play the clarinet or something?
Well, here's my prediction:
... he'll get an operation on his crossed eyes and he'll be able to pick up the spin on a baseball and be a champion baseball player ....

That's all right, this could work. Bill and his band used to play baseball against local teams for publicity, right? So if Bill II finds himself in a similar situation - it's just bound to happen, it's in the DNA - he may well find himself intrigued with going over to the "other side," the musical side ... and order will be restored to the universe once more.

And Martin - so many questions, which beg answers. I'm reminded of the scene at the end of "The Maltese Falcon," in which Sam Spade tells Brigid O'Shaughnessy that he's turning her in to the police for killing his partner. He rattles off a list of reasons why, saying something to the effect that they may not add up to much, but there are so many of them. That's kind of what this looks like to me. A black bird (one of the greatest McGuffins in the history of cinema).

[evanreilly]

I am waiting to hear from F5Loar as to the sizes on his Monroe hat collection and whether or not they are close to this specimen. That is an empirical starting place!!

[Mandojulie]

The hat on the head of the dummy in Daryl's photo is NOT the same hat that's for sale (look at the vent holes and the hat band and the material is wrong). It might possibly be the hat that's in the background of the photo.

Not only do we not know if the hat was ever worn by Mr. Monroe, we don't even know if it was worn by the Bill Monroe wax dummy!

Julie

[sunburst]

Looks like we'll have to clone whoever wore it to see who it was.