The Penticton Vees hat mystery is one step closer to being solved.

On Tuesday, Penticton museum manager Peter Ord emailed our Readers’ Reporter a photo from 1955, showing a crowd welcoming the famed hockey team back from its World Cup victory.

“Notice the young lad on the left,” wrote Ord.

Well, we could hardly believe our eyes.

There it was, the hat that Kamloops resident Vee Nolan asked us to hunt down — there, in the photo, on the head of a little boy staring back at us from the past.

“He is also holding a banner that mentions the V’s as Allan and World Cup winners. There is a person behind him on his left who is also wearing the same cap. They all seem to be singing or chanting,” added Ord.

When last we wrote about the Penticton Vees hat mystery, our team of sleuths had pinpointed the hat’s origin to 1954 or ’55 but had been unable to find photographic or documented proof.

Now we have it.

The photo Ord discovered in the museum’s archives this week clearly shows the same hat Nolan found in the house she moved into in 1973.

Now the only outstanding questions are:

1. Who produced the hat?

2. How many were produced?

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Got a mystery you’d like our Readers’ Reporter to hunt down? Email litt@kamloopsnews.ca or call 250-371-6149.