TIL that Panama hats may take a master weaver up to 8 months to produce, at a price of $200. The best hats can sell outside of Ecuador for 50x what the weaver is paid

Always like the ones that get you down a rabbit hole... Most are apparently on the order of a couple of days to produce, utilizing a less compact weave at the expense of some durability and finish, but are much more affordable than the thousands that the more high end ones can cost (more around the $100 mark at the low end). Still likely an order of magnitude more than the artisan gets...

Also thought that with such a high price there would be a lot of fakes, which does appear to be a problem. Linked a site below that seemed to summarize well with photos some of those characteristics, if anyone else is interested. Can't say I'm in the market for a several hundred dollar straw hat, but to each their own!

How to Spot a Fake Panama Hat

I had no idea of the type of weaving involved with those. That's pure insanity

Damn and I thought it was bad that my company makes 5.5x the profit off of my labour than I make, feel sorry for these people getting even more shafted.

wow look at this hat that has 4000 weaves per square inch. you can only see the individual weaves with a magnifying glass. insane