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Imitation is the sincerest Form of Flattery or did Stetson copy my Black Friday post?
By Postercowboy on November 29, 2025Sorry for starting this post with what is called a ‘Rohrkrepierer’ or ‘barrel burst’ in German, but the obvious answer to the above question is of course NO, Stetson most likely did not copy my post. At least not that I know of. Actually, the entire quote is ‘imitation is the sincerest form of flattery mediocrity can pay to greatness’. I guess there are numerous things Stetson could be accused of these days, them being a worldwide corporation and all, but ‘mediocrity’ is certainly not one of them. At least not when it comes to their hats. They don’t come close to the quality of their 1950s models anymore, but the ones made in their original factory in the USA on mid-century machines are still top notch, no doubt about that.
So what brought this question up? I’m not the only one who couldn’t care less about the annual ‘Black Friday’ hype, so yesterday I came up with the idea to declare ‘Black Hat Friday’, and I thought of myself as mighty smart and the idea as mighty unique. Needless to say, my post did not include any kind of sale, which was part of the idea.
Image my surprise when I opened my Inbox this morning to see this message from Stetson, that came in at 7 am this morning, about sixteen hours after I posted my original entry:
I mean, take a look at this ad: Not only do they copy my Black Hat tagline, they also show a cowboy with a black hat, who’s wearing a bandana and hides his face, and they refuse to offer a sale as well.
Could this all be a coincidence? A case of ‘great minds think alike’ perhaps? Could it be that the great people at Stetson are actually following my silly little blog? Am I perhaps on to something really BIG here?
And while we’re at it: The Postercowboy is a life-long fan of Stetson hats, and he considers the Open Road one of the greatest cowboy hat designs of all time. There’s a reason that one has been around since 1937. That said, the black hat in yesterday’s post is NOT a Stetson, it was custom made by Texas Hatters just right outside of Austin, TX sometime in the late 90s.
So could Stetson’s ‘Black Hat Saturday’ ad be some kind of payback for not showing one of their hats in my post? Only The Shadow knows…
