Posted on 01/08/2018 2:42:06 PM PST by nickcarraway
Billy the Kid is a tourist draw in parts of New Mexico. Now a New Mexico hat-maker is hoping to capitalize on the outlaw’s fashion sense, namely his hat.
The legend of Billy the Kid dates back more than a century, and in every picture that has surfaced of the cowboy there’s been one thing in common, his hat.
“A lot of people thought that the hat he was wearing was a prop that the photographer gave him,” Kenny Bratcher said, “but a guy like Billy the Kid, I think would’ve worn his own hat.”
Kenny Bratcher has been making hats in Tularosa for more than two decades. Recently, he got a special request.
“We are working on a Billy the Kid hat. Up until recently there was only one verified photograph of Billy the Kid and this is the hat he is wearing in the photograph,” Bratcher said.
He has made a few Billy the Kid hats for movies and pageants over the years, but he doesn’t have the market cornered.
A company in Iowa says it has sold dozens, but Bratcher says the authenticity of his hats comes from the time and work he puts into crafting his recreations, which are sometimes inspired by Hollywood.
“I’ll watch the movie and I’ll stop the hat and I’ll zoom in on it and see it at every angle,” he explained.
On his website, one hat is listed online for $355. So would New Mexicans buy it?
“The original yes, recreation probably not,” said Kimberly Phipps-Nichol, an Albuquerque visitor.
“No, I would not buy a Billy the Kid hat but I can appreciate the craft,” said Sarah Dickins, an Albuquerque resident.
Therese Thomas had a different opinion. “My husband’s in-laws own a restaurant in Las Cruces that Billy the Kid supposedly was involved with a robbery, so I might consider it.”
Bratcher was voted 2017’s best western hat maker by True West Magazine. His custom hats can take weeks to make and the prices range from $300-$950.
“His custom hats can take weeks to make and the prices range from $300-$950.”
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Good God, how can you live off of $300-$950 for weeks of work? Hahaha
I’m sure he makes more that one hat every 2 weeks.
I’d rather have a Buster Keaton hat. Keaton made his own hats.
That man who makes Buster Leaton hats:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LIucjouJPE
The Derby style was, for obvious reasons, the most popular mens headgear for that period and that geographic area.
Their website, plenty of styles for everyone. Good quality stuff.
http://www.broncosue.com/index.html
Another great hat company is D Bar J out of Las Vegas. David has been making hats since 1989, and attends End of Trail every year (world championship of Cowboy Action Shooting)
They will be able to sell something that looks that stupid?
On the other hand, millions bought pussy hats.
How can you know what a hat looks like if all you have is a picture of the brim from the underside? Rh?
Really!
Who the hell wears a suit coat with off the rack wash slacks?!?
Sounds like you might have never been to New Mexico.
Billy the Kid is buried in Hico, Texas.
“Billy the Kid is buried in Hico, Texas.”
I don’t think the folks at Old Fort Sumner Cemetery, NM would agree with you. Is Hico the same as Hamilton, TX. Because Hamilton says he’s buried there because William “Brushy Bill” Roberts, waited until 1949 to “confess” that he was the Kid, when he was almost 90.
Is that a UPC bar scanner code under his funeral director pussy hat?
That’s so sad.
Something can take weeks to make even if you only spend 2 or 3 minutes on it per day. That leaves a lot of extra minutes to make a bunch just like it in the same time period using the same equipment.
We also got John Wilkes Booth in Granbury,TX and that space alien who crashed his ship in the 1890’s buried in Aurora, TX.
AzTex 10X Open Road
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