With some input and advice from Tim (thanks Tim!) my wife got me these three spendid fellows for Christmas.
The Mountie is of course a real gem, and came with all his accoutrements. The horse is not the original one, but that's a trivial detail. I love the Mountie, so distinctive, and of course rare as Playmobil will probably never produce these again.
The Ranger is also a new figure in my collection, as other rangers I have wear a different color hat. I thought he was missing his hatband, but it turns out there never was a hatband in the original set 3228.
This particular hat shape with four creases rising to a crown falls under the name "Stetson" in Playmodb, and is widely used to describe any wide-brimmed high-crowned hat. I wasn't sure if this was correct (it is), so I looked up a bit about the history of the Stetson name.
I found that Stetson was a particular hat maker, John B Stetson, who set up manufacturing hats in Philadelphia in 1865 after some years travelling in the West. Presumably he designed very good hats because his "Boss of the Plains" soon became "The Hat" to be seen in.
The Stetson Hat Company still manufactures hats, their website currently featuring 34 different styles ranging from $28.50 to $310.00 (US Dollars)
http://www.stetsonhat.com/ . They don't sell the Mountie's Stetson direct to the public, but the original Mountie hat was supplied by Stetson, and you can buy one direct from the RCMP veterans store for $250 CAD.
http://www.mountiestore.com/products/item12.htmThe "Mountie" style of Stetson is still widely used across North America by Park Rangers, the Armed forces and Police forces, especially State Troopers, and it would be nice to see the style produced by Playmobil in other colors (e.g. Blue with a gold band & tassels). The crown gives extra height to anyone wearing it, and signifies officialdom and authority.
So, as so often with Playmobil, I've got not only a nice set of figures, but also more knowledge of what it was represents, and a little more understanding about the world we live in.
