Cornering the Cop Cap Market

For years, cops around the world have been taking their hats off to Huntington Park Police Lt. Michael Gwaltney.

That’s how Gwaltney put together what he believes is the largest collection of police hats in the United States--829 to be exact.

Gwaltney has traded, begged, and when that failed, paid cash for hats from police in just about every country in the world, including some political entities that no longer exist, such as the so-called homeland of Transkei, now part of South Africa.

His oldest hat is a spiked-top headpiece worn by a German cop in 1866.

He has swastika-adorned hats that Berlin police wore during the 1936 Olympics.

He has hats from the Guardia Civil of Spain, which are flat in back so the wearers can lean against a wall without having their hats tip up.

About 300 of Gwaltney’s hats are on display at the Huntington Park police station, along with several batons, badges and patches. The rest are in his home, either exhibited in his living room or boxed up in his garage.

The most valuable hats in his collection, Gwaltney said, were worn by Jews who were forced to act as policemen among their own people in the Warsaw and Lodz ghettos of Poland during the Nazi occupation of World War II. He said the hats are so rare that he will not display them in the police station for fear they will be stolen; he keeps them in a safe deposit box.

Gwaltney, known among police memorabilia collectors as “the Hat Man,” estimates that his hobby has put him back about $100,000 over the last 11 years, including the cost of traveling around the world visiting police headquarters and scouting memorabilia shows.

His wife has been a good sport about it, he said.

“I tell my wife that my hobby is my mistress,” he joked.

It is difficult to determine without a doubt whether Gwaltney has the largest such collection in the country. But several experts on police memorabilia say they have not heard of a bigger one.

“I would not doubt that he has the largest collection,” said Jim Ritter, curator of the Seattle Metropolitan Police Museum, which has only eight hats on display.

Most police memorabilia collectors and museums concentrate on badges, patches and handcuffs. “Hats take up so much room,” Ritter said.

Gwaltney has always been a collector. He started as a kid, collecting stamps and war memorabilia. When he became a cop, he decided to collect police headgear because “hats are the universal symbol of authority.”

Besides, he said, police patches and badges are pretty much the same throughout the world and do not have the same character as hats.

Gwaltney recently created a nonprofit organization so he can open a museum for his collection after he retires from the force in three years.

He began collecting the hats by putting an ad in an international police newsletter, asking police agencies to trade with him. He got a hat from a Bavarian police officer in exchange for a Huntington Park police hat.

His collection is a reminder of how the collapse or takeover of a political regime is often reflected in police uniforms.

Take the Czechoslovakian and Russian police hats from before and after the fall of the Soviet Union. After the fall, the Czech police hat lost the red Communist star symbol. The Russian police hat lost the hammer and sickle insignia, replacing it with the double-headed eagle of the Czarist era.

Gwaltney has written to the police headquarters of every nation in the world asking for hats, offering to pay for them or trade a Huntington Park police hat for them.

He said he’s still short 13 hats from having a representative from every country. For the most part, those that have not responded are the countries with poor relations with the United States.

“I wrote to Iraq, but I’m almost afraid to open the box if they send it to me,” he joked.

His letter to police in North Korea was returned without a response. But he obtained a Vietnamese police hat with the help of a collector in Europe.

He hasn’t been able to get a Cuban police hat, but he believes that he has some leads on acquiring a hat from Haitian police.

Gwaltney uses just about any contact he can find in his collecting efforts.

A public works employee in Huntington Park who was a military reserve member during the 1989 Panama invasion returned with a Panama police hat for the collection.

Gwaltney’s daughter plans to go to Jamaica for her honeymoon in September. He told her to have a great time, and then he made the same request he makes to any friend who is leaving the country.

“Get me a hat,” he said.