The Findlay Force
You Don't Buy A Hat.You Join Something.
Twelve years of collectors, first timers, and lifers who all found the same thing: a brand that has their back and a crew that shows up every Friday. Wear one out the door and strangers start talking to you. That is not an accident. That is the whole point.
Built For Good Times
The Hat Is The Excuse. The Good Times Are The Point.
A boat on a green lake with the light coming off the water. Sled laps at Stevens in the middle of a storm. A creek, a bowl session, a fallen log somebody decided was a gap, a field full of silly string and a sign two people built by hand. Off the roof into the river because somebody dared somebody. Twelve years of this is what actually built the Force, and none of it happened because anybody was protecting a hat.
Send it. We will handle the hat. Every Findlay carries a lifetime warranty, so the worst thing that happens to it out there is a story and a replacement. That is the whole reason people wear them into places a hat has no business going.
In The Wild
Say Findlay Out Loud. Somebody Answers.
Gas station in Ohio. Chairlift in Utah. A wedding you did not want to go to. You catch the laces out of the corner of your eye, they catch yours, and forty seconds later two grown adults are scrolling photos of their hat collections on their phones. This happens to Force members constantly, in every state and on six of the seven continents, and it is the best part of the whole thing.
You Get Spotted
The Stampede laces give you away from across a parking lot. No logo hunting, no squinting. Force members clock each other instantly and neither person has to explain a thing.
It Never Stays Small Talk
It starts with the hat and ends up somewhere else. Trades get made. Numbers get swapped. People have flown to meet up, split hotel rooms at events, and shown up to each other's weddings off a conversation that started with one hat.
We Are Everywhere
Force members are in all fifty states, across Canada, and on six of the seven continents. Airports count. Festivals count. Your kid's soccer game absolutely counts. Wherever you are going, somebody there is already wearing one.
The Last One
Six Continents Down. Antarctica Is Being Difficult.
Twelve years, three hundred thousand people, every continent on earth except the frozen one. There are about a thousand humans down there at any given moment and not one of them has sent us a photo. This is now a personal problem for us.
So, in writing: first person to send us a shot of a Findlay standing on Antarctic ice, we will take care of you and you go straight to the top of this page. Researchers, contractors, cooks, pilots, we do not care. Somebody down there knows somebody.
The Design Archive
Twelve Years Of Fridays. Thousands Of Named Hats.
Every Friday a new run goes up and sells through. Designs come back all the time, never in the same mix, so the archive keeps stacking. That is how a design turns into a family, and how a family turns into somebody's twelve year hunt.
Coming Soon
Every Design, In One Place.
We are building the full archive right here: every design, every family, every variation, all the way back to 2013. Searchable, browsable, and finally settled once and for all.
Collectors Corner
Some People Take It All The Way.
Some people collect so deep it is honestly hard to believe. When they get there, we send a coin. These are not rungs you have to climb and nobody is keeping score on you. They are just proof of how far the love can go, and we think they are the coolest thing in the Force.
You do not have to catch every Friday to get there. The Official Findlay Hats B/S/T group is a thriving secondhand market with thousands of members trading daily, and most of the deep collections on this page were finished with hats bought off other members years after the drop sold out. Sold out is not the end of the road, it is just the part where you go talk to somebody.
69 Findlays
Any designs, any years. Sixty-nine on the shelf and the coin is yours, free. Most people who qualify have no idea they already did.
100 Findlays
Still any designs. Hit a hundred hats total, send a photo of the pile, and you get the gold coin plus a permanent spot on the wall below. That is the whole requirement.
99 Of One Design
Get to 99 hats of the same design and we build your 100th. Not a reissue and not a restock. A one of one, designed entirely by you: you pick the base, up to three embroidery placements, the gold mark, and whatever custom details you talk us into. People have sent in their own fabric. People have had their tattoos digitized onto it.
What Counts Toward The 99
- One design, or its parent family. Every Space Boi variation counts together.
- A specific variation of a design.
- A color scheme.
- A brim pattern.
What Does Not
- Broad themes.
- General color collections. Black is out, there is far too much of it.
- We have the final say on what qualifies, and we would rather say yes.
The two rules above are for the 100 Hat Collection build only. The 69 Coin and the 100 Hat Club just count hats.
There is a four step checklist for the build at the bottom of the 100 Hat Club page: a dated photo of the collection, your preferred bases, your embroidery placements, and any notes. Builds run one to five weeks. Shipping is on us. You get a custom invoice before anything goes into production.
The 100 Hat Club, On The Wall Forever
- MI · 8
- WA · 5
- WI · 4
- OH · 4
- NY · 4
- PA · 3
- UT · 3
- CA · 3
- OR · 3
- AL · 3
- NC · 2
- FL · 2
- KS · 2
- GA · 2
- MN · 2
- MA · 2
- SC · 2
- IL · 2
- TN · 2
- MO · 2
- LA
- KY
- CT
- NV
- IA
- AK
- TX
- VA
- NM
- AZ
- CO
- OK
- ID
- Newfoundland, CA
- Ontario, CA
And that is only the people who mailed in a photo of a hundred hats. The Force itself is 300,000 deep, in all fifty states and on six of the seven continents, and does not fit on a list.
Tap any collection to see it full size
Not Pictured, Still Counted
- 54 Ryan B. · 99 Lifty Boi
- 57 Anthony O. · 109 · OR
- 60 Jesse, Ski The Boldline · 99 Eagles
- 62 Greg S. · 600 · WI
- 64 Brandon M. · 367
- 67 Casey M. · 104 Death / Space Boi
- 68 Jared W. · 100 Live Chameleon
- 71 Philip R. · ~100 Norris
- 82 Philip R. · ~100 Tiki
Coins earned, photos still owed. If one of these is you, run a shot of the collection through the 100 Hat Club form and we will get you up on the wall where you belong.
The Wall
Real Racks. Real People.
Every one of these came from a Force member who mailed it in. Closets, garages, spare rooms, one guy's entire living room wall. Tag #FindlayForce and you land right here on the site with them.
Get On The Wall
Tag @FindlayHats and use #FindlayForce. We pull our favorites straight onto this page. No hoops, no minimum, no coin required. One hat on a hike counts as much as a hundred on a shelf.
The Lore
Every Hat's Got A Story. Some Of Them Are True.
Twelve years of inside jokes, origin stories, and stuff you only get once you are deep in it. Here is the surface. The rest you pick up along the way, usually from a stranger in a parking lot.
Who Was Findlay?
Harold Findlay, Jimmy's grandfather. The whole thing started with $1,400 and a living room back in 2013. The name was never a marketing choice. It was family.
The Stampede Lace
The laces that actually keep the hat on your head. Patented, and nobody else has them. They are also how Force members spot each other from fifty feet away, which was never the plan but turned out to be the best part.
The Hidden Pocket
There is a stash sewn inside every single hat. What you keep in there is between you and the hat. Ask a lifer what they have found in a thrifted Findlay.
The Groups
The Site's The Trophy Case. Facebook Is Where We Hang.
Two groups, two jobs. Select is the community. B/S/T is where the rare stuff surfaces. Both are free and both are worth being in.
Findlay Select is the community. It is where the Force actually hangs out. Drop night at 7, the live custom show at 5, twelve years of inside jokes, and a constant feed of people wearing their hats somewhere they probably should not have. If you own one Findlay you belong in here.
Nobody checks your count at the door. Post the one hat you own and somebody will tell you the story behind the design.
The Marketplace
Buy, sell, trade. This is where the rare ones turn up. Sold out runs, one of ones somebody is finally ready to part with, the exact hat that has been the hole in your collection for three years. Grails change hands here every day, and it runs on trust that took twelve years to build.
This Page Is Not Finished.
We are still building it. More photos, more history, the full design archive, and whatever else the Force actually wants to see on here. Stay tuned, and if there is something you want on this page, say so in the group. We read all of it and we build what people ask for.
- The Full Design Archive Every design since 2013, in one place
- More Of The Wall Every collection photo we get sent
- The Stories How the weirdest designs actually happened
- Your Idea Post it in the group and we will look at it
One Hat In.You're One Of Us.
We do not care if you own one Findlay or a thousand. We care that you are out there wearing it and having a good time. One hat gets you the nod in a parking lot in a town you have never been to. One hat gets you into the group. One hat is enough to walk away with friends you did not have last week.
We love this community. Twelve years in, we are still floored that any of it happened, and we are grateful for every single person in it. The collectors, the one hat people, the ones who have been here since the living room, and the ones who found us last Friday. All of you.
That is it, that is all. Let's have some good times together.