Men's Hats & Caps
Buy and sell men’s hats and caps in Panama.
A sombrero pintao woven in La Pintada and a fitted cap still wearing its gold sticker can both be listed here, new or pre-owned, and almost nothing about judging one applies to the other. The pintao is sewn by hand from palm fibre in Coclé, its dark stripes dyed with the leaves of a local plant and swamp mud, and its worth lies in how many rounds of braid it has. A cap is judged on fit and on whether the labels inside are real. Between the two sit the plainer cream hats and white work hats of the central provinces, and the hat from Ocú in Herrera.
The sombrero pintao, the cream hat and the white work hat:
all three are braided from plant fibre and sewn round by round over a wooden block, but only the pintao carries black stripes and patterned braids. That dark fibre is boiled with leaves until reddish, then left in mud until black. Most master weavers work around La Pintada, Penonomé and Antón. The white work hat is the farmhand’s version, cheap and meant to be worn out; the cream hats come from Veraguas and Los Santos as well as Coclé. The straw fedora sold abroad as the “Panama hat” is Ecuadorian, woven in one piece from the same palm rather than sewn from braids. It is not a fake pintao, but a listing should say which one it is.
Fitted, snapback and stretch caps:
the closure decides whose head a cap suits. A fitted cap such as the New Era 59FIFTY has a closed back and comes in eighth-inch sizes, so it suits one head and not the next. Snapbacks and strapbacks open at the back and forgive a guess, and a stretch-fit like the 39THIRTY covers a band of sizes marked S/M or M/L. Measure just above the ears and use the brand’s chart, because the centimetres on a fitted cap’s label are not always the head size it fits. Low glare off the water at Pedasí is a job for men’s sunglasses.
Counting the rounds on a pintao:
a round is one full turn of braid, and the joins between rounds are sewn inside the crown, so turn the hat over and count one join per round. Up to about 15 is an everyday hat; fine ones run from 16 to 24 rounds of thinner braid, lighter and weeks more work. Price follows that count. A pintao of about a dozen rounds sells for roughly $120 to $250 new, while the finest made-to-order hats pass $1,000, so a seller who will not say the number deserves a second question. Ask for the inside circumference in centimetres as well as the size.
Cracked straw, open stitching and copied cap labels:
a pintao wears first at the brim edge and the top of the crown, where hands grip it, and along the stitching between rounds. Bend the brim gently in daylight: sound fibre flexes, dry fibre shows white lines or splits. Each weaver works a mark into the black stripes, so ask whose hat it is and which town it came from. Blue, green or red stripes are a newer style, not a warning sign. A used one is still priced on its rounds, and a split brim takes most of that away. A cap shows its life in the sweatband: salt rings and a band gone stiff do not wash out. A genuine New Era has the brand and model printed crisply on the tape covering the inside seams, plus stitched-in tags. Blurred tape print on a “new with sticker” fitted far below the usual price means look closer.
The inside of the crown, photographed first:
that picture lets a buyer count the rounds or read a cap’s tags and sweatband, so take it in daylight. Add the maker’s mark, the brim edge and the hat on a head. State the number of rounds, the inside circumference and, if you know them, the weaver and the town, and spell it pintao, not “pintado”, because that is how people search. For a cap, give the model, the closure, the exact size and whether the sticker is still on. If the same drawer holds a watch or a pair of cufflinks, those go under men’s watches and cufflinks. Someone driving in from Santiago or Chitré for a pintao will want to try it on before paying. Hand it over by the brim: pinching the crown is how straw starts to crack.