Post Your New Eras*59-Fiftys*etc... VOL. INFINITY NOW W/ Henz0/Thunderchunk/Icy's FAQ ON PG.1

[jonwin]

^ wallyhopp you mean "Light Navy" for the color that has the purple-ish hue on China fabric.

The regular navy looks relatively consistent between China and USA fabric.

Dark Royal (Dodger Blue) has a similar issue as well for the "purple" hue on China fabric.

Not as bad as the Light Navy but still bad enough for me to easily notice IMO

 

[wallyhopp]

jonwin good info.

i was initially thinking 'hey this China custom is way off'. So I had to look it up a bit. It appears the San Diego Padres went to the lighter navy color around 1998 for their World Series run. So in theory this custom is accurate with the more purple light navy hue (sounds confusing and stupid but it makes sense to me). That lighter color lasted what seems like 2 seasons. I had no idea. I assumed they had always had the darker navy through the white s orange d era.

So initially I didn't even realize the padres went light navy , so I wasn't even really thinking that when talking about them
So even I can be wrong. Regardless. Here is a darker navy '16 tbtc vs. what is the darker purple hue 'light navy' 1998-2000 made in China custom.

The padres vs. brewers custom are the same exact hue. Not that the mlb makes it easy as teams change little things often and I can kind of understand how lids or whomever makes mistakes. But I don't get paid to make mistakes.

Here's an closer to accurate twins M era made in China custom against a 2004 era USA wool.

I guess what I'm saying is. Mistakes like a navy button instead of s red can happen. And even slight color changes. But entire logo sizes being off. Nah! No excuses.

 

[jonwin]

^ wallyhopp The Padres have had a lot of identity issues throughout their entire history, hence why they've even wasted the time switching between dark navy and light navy for the Tony Gwynn era hats you posted.

The 2016 (and currently this year's TBTC for the Gwynn era hats) are obviously referencing the dark navy versions of those hats but I can see how confusing that can be to most people that may only know of the light navy version or vice versa.

Not defending Lids at all b/c they're pretty corny to me in general but lot of stuff falls on MLB licensing and what they deem to be accurate or just what they decide to approve when it comes to retro remakes.

Has little to do w/ the retailer or what New Era does as it all boils down to whoever in MLB licensing signs off or deems as the "official" specs of a retro hat.

Lot of stupid rules and reasonings on retro hats that don't make sense at all

 

[sleepybluedemon]

Those "retros" with the tiny logos are laughably bad. They looked ridiculous just scrolling through lids.com compared to the other White Sox New Eras I was looking at. Just don't buy them. We all know that New Era will make better "retros" in the near future. I have enough to hold me over until they make a better one without the logo on the side.

Also, just picked up a Liga MX Morelia New Era hat. Thought it was kinda cool that lids has Mexican league futbol hats now.

 

[shotimesheff]

Always liked that Pirates colorway.

 

[1c3m4m]

Anybody know where I can pick up a Mets Roc Nation fitted? Dropped the ball and completely missed them, even when they were sitting in stores

 

[wallyhopp]

Anyone else into college on fields? Not exactly new eras but I'll talk about them here for a brief moment.

I sort of had to take advantage of that NCAA $10 hat sale on lids.

On fields retail for about $28. These seven are made by The Game. Before adidas , under armor, and nike took over college baseball, these were the new era hats of college baseball. Even pro line had their fair share of heavy weight teams. More on them later.

Now I'm not sure how far off to date these guys, as some of these teams went to bigger companies and lost a lot of their identity. But I'll gladly be the guinea pig on sizing and quality.

Stitching and material quality is on par with the best of them. Where it's iffy is in the sizing ,much like new era lol. A few came in stretched fitteds. Others came in their 'size'. I had issues with two of them.

My favorite element of these on field NCAA hats is that there is freedom for other sponsors on the hat.

On both the Baylor and Pepperdine hat, we see a Louisville slugger logo on the back.

Going back a couple of years, you may even see TPX ( a bat producing company).

Some teams even had other brands like Demarini (another bat producer).
Here's an older era Arizona state pro line cap

Since Arizona State went with adidas a few years back, they have not allowed any of this multiple branding on hats

College baseball used to be the Wild West of branding. Nike, adidas, and under armor have taken away so many freedoms of these schools to free lance it.

Much like MLB, college baseball is becoming cookie cutter soft.

I have other examples where Nike took over the back logo and side logo ( years before new era decided to take over MLB). It's sort of sad how we've evolved.

 

[ruckus2115]

Found this hat on eBay. Was hoping to get some feed back on it. Never got anything this old.

 

[wallyhopp]

^ 1990-1992 is what my guess would be. The country of origin is interesting. I don't know too much about Korea made New Era on fields, nor the blend of materials. I know colleges and other sports have older new eras made elsewhere, along with a lot of snapback mlb new eras

This one popped up on lids last night (then dropped off).

It's the 1987-90 Chicago White Sox. The retro classic has a batterman on the back, even though the hat itself dates 5 years prior.
Compared to the original

The logo size is way too big. I don't know what it is about lids. They can't get anything right it seems. Stuffs either too small or too large. The navy color seems a touch too dark, but I'll give them a pass on that

 

[jonwin]

wallyhopp

^ there's currently only 2 shades of "navy" to use on customs: dark navy (Yankees navy and that White Sox retro navy) and then the light navy.

Back in the "old" old days, New Era may have had more specific diff shades of similar colors but these days, it's all pretty narrowed down to 1-2 shades of a color.

on a diff note, I'd actually argue and say the pic of the OG hat looks "darker" than the custom Lids has. You can see a "blue hue" on the Lids hat while the OG hat looks closer to "black" so interesting to my view that you thought Lids' navy was "too dark" lol

 

[uno]

Here's a couple recent wool pick ups off eBay for the low low, shouts to my guy wallyhopp

 

[ii flash ii]

wallyhopp I ended up picking up the hat stretcher, but I got a question... After I let it sit for a few days, then the hat shrinks again

Same happening for you?

 

[wallyhopp]

nice pickups uno That seller has a couple of others.. Found another wool for less than $20 shipped with a BIN. Looks to be 2006 era if u spot that one. Steal considering what lids is pawning off as retro classics. Get the real thing.

ii flash ii you may be too gingerly stretching the hat. I had to add an old t shirt because I had pushed the bolt threading to their limits. I was too soft with a couple and they seemed to shrink back within days. But a '06 wool marlins I felt I may have stretched too much as the fit was too big for a couple days. Now it's set in its place and fits perfect. That's just me but don't be afraid to over stretch

jonwin
I may have been thinking about the lighter shade of blue on fitteds in the wrong perspective. A light bulb went off.

The darker light navy seen on made in China customs is actually very close to the lighter navy seen on made in USA wools. I've never had exact hats/teams to do direct comparisons. I was comparing wools to polys all this time.

It seems like the shade of light blue went from darker to lighter when they switched to polys

I know the Indians have had many shades of navy through their years so I did a quick comparison with some poly light navy Indians, some wool 'light navy' Indians, some made in China wool customs padres & brewers (as previously seen) ,and then a wool 'light navy' Angels.

Can you tell which is which?

Spoiler

From top to bottom, 3 lighter navy poly, 3 light navy wools, 2 China wool customs, angels wool. The front six nearly identical. The China customs weren't so wrong after all.

This doesn't discount the fact that for the San Diego Padres on the retro classicline, they went full dark navy, when the alternative is what the made in China people use.

I do get what you're saying with just two shades of navy. In the wool days it used to be full yankee navy and then a touch lighter navy. That seemed to change with polys when they went full lighter navy.

'Lighter" poly navy on the left. 'Darker' light navy wool on the right. Technically the same design/color.

May be the cause of some confusion.

 

[Bert.]

are the retros in all stores yet? really wanna see them

 

[wallyhopp]

The rollout is pathetic. My Indians arrives Friday. It shipped from a lids in Ohio.

Conceivably if you are in a mlb market, they'll have your team. With such limited sizing, it doesn't seem feasible that every lids will have even one of these

On another note, lids.ca dropped some expos and blue jays. Five in total. Full size run right off the bat. Flat logo and wool had such a selling point. I'll have to cross reference for accuracy now. I'm hearing some teams will have as many as five retros. I'm on the fence and quite vocal about my diespleasure but excited to see new ones drop non the less.

Expos looking like they flipped the red and blue on the bill and back of crown. What an omission. Lol. That's bad

 

[Bert.]

I mean, I am looking for the road tigers since I hate the poly version and just doesn't fit right

I'm just hoping for normal crown and a perfect fit but it prob won't be both.

 

[donjuan513]

I think the batterman logo was a way for them to differentiate from the Cooperstown Collection. Retro hats were a way for fans to reel back in the fans whom weren't to thrilled about on fields having the NE logo.

I'm waiting on the tricolor Expos!!!!

 

[wallyhopp]

I think the batterman logo was a way for them to differentiate from the Cooperstown Collection. Retro hats were a way for fans to reel back in the fans whom weren't to thrilled about on fields having the NE logo.

I'm waiting on the tricolor Expos!!!!

Expos is on lids.ca for now

They literally flipped the red and the blue into a colorway that never got worn, EVER. Pretty inexcusable.

But I get what you're saying. IMHO, this line has the same general dynamics as the cooperstown, but without the NE flag. It does feel like they were trying to throw us a branch of good faith. But so far, utter failure. Or pretty much par for the course with NE/Lids/Cooperstown collection.

For reference, the Expos only ever wore this tri color design
[

Like I said about the ultimate patch hats, they are creating mythical hybrids, branching patches with logos that never existed, to underbrims that are different. I guess the same thing can be said about the Blue Jays and Expos.

Even Mickeysplace.com has some miscues on their "customs". I've never seen a red billed Expos though lol (until today). As we stand now, and like the guy who posted up the Brewers/Mariners patch hats, the custom game has been pretty strong for at least 10 years. This feels nothing new. And if it is a way for lids/NE to reel in those that hate the NE flag, they have to understand, many are purists at heart and notice when you use blue instead of red, and red instead of blue. Not to mention the Blue Jays blue being too BLUE. Par for the course. Its really just hype created cooperstown rehashes. Yet I bought one. Im a sucker at heart I guess. (some are way more accurate than others and wool is a blend that agrees with me. so I stay tuned in with what is coming out here).

These are on the same level or worse as the made in china customs/mickeysplace customs that have been around for years. I say, just go for those guys at this point in time.

 

[jonwin]

^ wallyhopp That Expos is a joke.

Botched the "pinwheel" color blocking and also used the wrong royal blue (used Light Royal instead of the "Dodger Blue" which the Expos were).

This is how you do Expos hats right here:

Hat Club customs from about 2 years ago:

USA-made poly, correct color blocking, flat-stitched logo and correct size.

Only "flaw" is they have the NE flags but there wasn't an option to not have the flags. Regardless, if a tonal NE flag is the worst thing on this hat with all of the other great things going for these hats, I'll take that any day over these half-assed Lids ones.

Yes, yes, I know some might say "they're bad or wrong b/c they're poly instead of wool" but think of these as Turn Back the Clock-style customs where they're using modern fabrics (i.e. the ones the current On-Field's are).

Just remember, older/original doesn't always mean better.

Riding a horse would be considered more "vintage" or "old school" to driving a car but you wouldn't start knocking cars and saying horses are better to ride for transportation. Or at least I wouldn't lol

 

[wallyhopp]

Too good to pass up.

1998 Pittsburgh Pirates road on field. Made in USA. 100% wool

For years I have had this "Cooperstown collection" hat that I thought was close to the real thing

It seems close enough. But it's all about the little details

The original appears to have more of a blue hue on the grey vs the Cooperstown hat taking more of a yellow hue.
Add in a black under, a 80/20 poly/wool blend, the wrong batterman for the Cooperstown, and the overall fit, it just doesn't come close. One could argue that the yellow stitching around the P is too orange on the Cooperstown. But that would be pushing it. New era / lids is making it easy to go right to the source and by pass the retros. I finally have an original after years of feeling the Cooperstown was sufficient

 

[donjuan513]

The holdup with the Retro hats is that the US facility making then, isn't use to those type of numbers. After NE starting doing more overseas they let go a lot of the workers. They're coming slowly but surely. I haven't even seen any in Chicago stores yet.

 

[ruckus2115]

I want that Pirates hat....
eBay find??

I have the Cooperstown edition. But I want that wool hat...

 

[wallyhopp]

Yep. The bay. I almost forgot, I deflagged the Cooperstown edition to make it look closer to the real thing. But there's nothing like it. I hadn't seen one near my size in years. So one has to grab quickly. It sat for two days or so before I saw it.

Seller opened up offers And took mine. No one seems willing to spend $20 or more on wool on fields without them sitting for days or weeks. No complaints. More for me. They will jump st ultimate patch hats at twice the cost though. That's consumers for ya.

Same seller has rangers, orioles, and twins grey under wools. He incorrectly lists a tigers as wool so be cautioned always. Photos tell more than any other description

 

[ck1301]

I've been trying to find a tigers cap with a green undervisor in my size but this will have to do even though I hate the patch.

 

[shotimesheff]

What is the graphic on the new NFL on field brims? Its shaped like an octagon but is there any significance?