Original Item: Only One Available. The Victorian era was one of the most glamorous times for military uniforms, wonderful bright colors, predominantly red, beautifully tailored and worn with amazing ornate headgear. Exotic helmets abounded with every regiment displaying their own versions. Of course, this was all “for show” and in their everyday lives things were quite different. What we offer here is typical headgear of many officers when not on parade. Other ranks also used pillbox hats but with little adornment.
This is a Volunteers officer’s hat dating somewhere from 1855 to 1885. Beautifully constructed of navy blue melton cloth and handsomely decorated with silver thread on the crown and all around the border. Leather chinstrap (unattached on one side) remains as does the lather sweatband and quilted maroon silk inside the crown. Hats like this are often encountered in old photographs and illustrations being worn in a jaunty fashion at an extreme angle that perhaps led to the later term “side cap” for casual military headwear.
A fine example, possibly 150 years of age offered in lovely display condition.