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Like a Fezzy Phoenix, we rise!

Holy cats! where did the time go! It has been almost two full years since our last update to this website. That’s a long time! But, thanks to the Corona Virus and a slow down in fraternal activity, your trusty curator has found himself with a little extra time on his hands. Since our last update, we have continued to buy fezzes and scour local antique malls for fraternal finds. We hope the wait was worth it, as we bring you no less than nine new fezzes, including one completely new exhibit!

First up is one of our most exciting finds – two Past Supreme High Priestess fezzes from the Ladies Oriental Shrine of North America. The Supreme Worthy High Priestess is the highest ranking officer of this organization and therefore these fezzes are very rare. To have obtained two of them in one shot is very exciting!

Next up we have our newest exhibit, detailing the history of the little known Dramatic Order Knights of Omar. This group is attached to the African American Knights of Pythias and offers a fraternal experience devoted to fun and fellowship. This fez was a special find indeed!

In the Order of Alhambra exhibit, we’ve added a Past Regional Directors fez, inching us every closer to a complete collection from this body. All we need now is a Supreme Officer’s fez, and a Past Supreme presiding officer’s fez and we’ll have them all!

We’ve also added new fezzes to the Masonic Youth Groups (two new Job’s Daughters examples), our Occupational Groups exhibit (a States Fleet Masonic Club fez), the Junior American Mechanics, and a very fine Princes of Bagdad fez from Lancaster, PA.

We hope you enjoy this update. While we can’t guarantee that we’ll be timelier with future additions, know that we do respond to all communications from this website and remain on the hunt for our next fezzy find!

Excelsior!

2020-03-17T23:43:33+00:00March 17th, 2020|General Info, Updates|Comments Off on Like a Fezzy Phoenix, we rise!

We’re not dead yet!

 It’s a been a while, fezzy friends – nearly a year in fact. But, the Fez Museum continues to plod along. We’ve been acquiring fewer pieces as time goes on, but we are still collecting. This is a long overdue update for sure and we should have some additional updates coming in the next several months as we catch up on our backlog of new acquisitions.

To start, we have a major update to the Religious Groups section, specifically several fezzes dealing with the Nuwabian movement. We came into a cache of fezzes from this group and we’re excited to share them with you, even if they come from a dubious piece of history.

Then, we’re happy to share a special, new fez to the collection – the curator’s own fez from the Dramatic Order of the Knights of Khorassan, the fun side branch of the Knights of Pythias.

As always, we thank you for your continued support and interest in our site!

2020-03-17T23:43:56+00:00May 30th, 2018|General Info, Updates|Comments Off on We’re not dead yet!

Fez Grading Guide

randomWe are proud to announce a new resources for fez collectors! After more than a year of work, we are happy to release our “Fez Grading Guide” to the world.

This guide will help any collector rate their fez on a 15 point scale. Up to five points can be awarded in three categories – condition, rarity, and age. The higher the score, the more valuable the fez!

We hope you find this guide useful. We will be using it in our correspondence with others when we are asked to value a fez, making the process a bit more transparent.

This guide will permanently reside our our Resources area.

2016-10-17T18:38:41+00:00September 13th, 2013|General Info|Comments Off on Fez Grading Guide

Introducing Mr. Fezziwig!

It has been quite a while since we’ve posted anything new here at the Museum. That is mainly because we haven’t had any new additions to the collection since shortly after the Christmas holiday. The rarer specimens for which we are in the market have been increasingly harder to come by, so there is a shortage of new fezzes to post.

However, we are in possession of one cute little fez related object that we wanted to share with you – Mr. Fezziwig.  In the early to mid 20th century these types of figures were quite popular. Being made of metal and with a bit of paint to make the fez standout, they were nice little knick-knacks for the fraternalist. This piece was donated to the Museum by the father of the curator and has become sort of a mascot for the collection.

In the future, as we add new fezzes, we’ll be sure to post them. We appreciate your patience as we continue to grow!

2016-10-17T18:39:16+00:00February 28th, 2012|General Info|Comments Off on Introducing Mr. Fezziwig!

An Update Sans Fez

Good day, intrepid reader! Today’s update isn’t one that deals directly with any particular fez. Instead, we thought it would be nice to share with you the culmination of some of the research the Museum has been doing on the side. Recently, we came across an archive of newspapers from the earliest part of the 20th Century. What did we look up first? Stuff about fraternal organizations, of course!

After a bit of digging, we hit the jackpot in regards to information on the formation and subsequent merger of roughly a half dozen social fraternal organizations aligned with the Odd Fellows. As the popularity of the Shriners grew in the Masonic world, many folks wanted a similar organization in the group they belonged to. This caused the formation of such groups as the Imperial Order of Muscovites, the Oriental Order of Humility and Perfection, the Ancient Mystic Order of Cabiri, the Pilgrim Knights of Oriental Splendor, and even more!

By the 1920’s, the Sovereign Grand Lodge of the Odd Fellows (the national governing body) had enough of this nonsense and talked several of the organizations into merging. In 1925, they all came together and formed the United Order of Splendor and Perfection, which would be renamed two years later, calling itself the Ancient Mystic Order of Samaritans (which exists to this day.)

So, we encourage you to check out our timeline and learn something about the earliest days of fez wearing fraternalism in America!

2016-10-17T18:39:38+00:00September 29th, 2011|General Info|Comments Off on An Update Sans Fez