diff --git a/pandas/io/stata.py b/pandas/io/stata.py
index 985ea9c051505..14bd670862b41 100644
--- a/pandas/io/stata.py
+++ b/pandas/io/stata.py
@@ -1210,18 +1210,18 @@ def _read_old_header(self, first_char):
                 if tp in self.OLD_TYPE_MAPPING:
                     typlist.append(self.OLD_TYPE_MAPPING[tp])
                 else:
-                    typlist.append(tp - 127)  # string
+                    typlist.append(tp - 127)  # py2 string, py3 bytes
 
         try:
             self.typlist = [self.TYPE_MAP[typ] for typ in typlist]
         except:
             raise ValueError("cannot convert stata types [{0}]"
-                             .format(','.join(typlist)))
+                             .format(','.join(str(x) for x in typlist)))
         try:
             self.dtyplist = [self.DTYPE_MAP[typ] for typ in typlist]
         except:
             raise ValueError("cannot convert stata dtypes [{0}]"
-                             .format(','.join(typlist)))
+                             .format(','.join(str(x) for x in typlist)))
 
         if self.format_version > 108:
             self.varlist = [self._null_terminate(self.path_or_buf.read(33))