Star Wars Collectibles: Tie Fighter Pilot (ANH) by RWA Creations

At 52 I've hit that age where material objects, collected trinkets if you will  are gradually meaning less and less to me to possess, for some people these trinkets can take any form, it might be a framed sports jersey or a signed baseball, for others it might be a full size replica Terminator endoskeleton skull or vintage toys or first edition comics. I've no idea if this is because I'm at an age where I find myself cruising the suburbs of mortality, a countdown clock that I can clearly hear ticking louder than it did 10 years ago, or if its just my lack of interest generally in things that used to give me 'a buzz'.

I sold a prized gaming collectible in the form of a full size Blitz the League American football helmet to fund the purchase of a replica Star Wars Tie Fighter pilot helmet. I could have invested the money into my pension (yawn) or bought some shares or done something else uniquely boring with it, so after careful consideration I decided to say screw all that, I'm making one last stupidly daft purchase in my adult life and it shall be something without any kind of function whatsoever, other than to make me blissfully happy for a short time until the feel good buzz wears off. Something I've not been for a good many years.

Did some hunting online and found a Welsh based kit builder by the name of Ross who runs RWA Creations. I've been a big of his work and he knows his stuff when it comes to building Stormtrooper armour and Tie Fighter helms. Additionally, I wanted a UK based builder with plenty of experience which would also keep shipping affordable.

I decided to keep it 'plain Jane', just a standard black one, its not a Backstabber design ( the one with the grey tears) or Jolly Roger squadron and its not an Inferno squadron one either, although I was tempted.

Backstabber Tie - note the grey tear lines running down the cheeks

I opted for a helmet fully built in acrylic capped for the extra shine and one with bubble lenses. I've always loved the imperial helmet designs, having acquired the Black Series Vader helmet and a Stormtrooper helmet from New Image Props a few years ago, the Tie Fighter Pilot finishes my trilogy nicely. Wait time for the helmet from RWA Creations was about 5 weeks and the cost was £210 / $275 delivered. Ross, the guy who runs RWA is super friendly, very approachable and I contacted him through email with what I was looking for.

RS Props Tie build

There are a few builders out there that do some very nice Tie helms, RS Prop Masters based in Stockport was also UK based but a bit rich for my blood at £359. Armory Shop does an awesome build of the Inferno helmet for $234 without shipping but comes from Russia and I really didn't want issues with customs etc, given the events in Ukraine. 

Galactic Armory Tie Pilot kit

Galactic Armory based in the USA does a very nice 3D print kit for $120 not including shipping but that's probably more suited for a true self made custom build so plenty of sanding and finishing required and I simply don't have the workbench to sort that.

Chris the Prop Guy Tie Helmet (Backstabber variant with cheek tears)

ChrisThePropGuy also does an awesome Tie helm and the fit and finish on his Etsy store does look one of the better ones you can get, his Backstabber variant looks superb, he's based in Australia though. Finally the Andrew Ainsworth Tie comes in at a whopping £579 but states that it comes from original 1976 molds, therefore has screen lineage, that's fine if you want the essence of true screen lineage as collectors talking point, and while I'm a massive Star Wars fan I couldn't quite reach that budget.

Andrew Ainsworth Imperial Tie - (screen lineage from 1976 molds)

RWA Creations based in the UK produces a beautiful Acrylic Capped standard Tie Fighter helmet with bubble lenses, Here are some pics below of my newly acquired helm. Hoses will come later and I'm debating to add silver to the nose vents.

RWA Creations Tie fighter helmet in Acrylic Capped Vinyl

STAR WARS : 10 Things You Probably Collected

 10 THINGS YOU PROBABLY COLLECTED

I have vague recollections of my childhood, that is to say I remember key moments, but alarmingly there are large voids I simply cannot remember. I'm hoping this large expanse of mental fatigue is not the onset of dementia but then there are times at home I can forget what I went upstairs for in the space of 12 steps, this is normal right?
We take for granted that our kids have digital devices like phones and tablets and are creating moments of their lives and storing memories on things like Facebook and YouTube, for my generation its carefully navigating the perils of a darkened loft hunting through musty cardboard boxes for frayed photos or scrapbooks. 

1977, I was 7 years old,and now at 45 years of age I stand witness to my own son enthralled at Star Wars, albeit in a more digital format, (even he's grown out of figurines ). These days fads come and go, there's the odd revival here and there but I have to say that Star Wars has outlived everything else I was into as a kid. I still have a boxed Millenium Falcon and numerous figures, and like a complete sucker all those years ago fritted away cash on Episode One dolls of Queen Amidala (still boxed and loftbound) and Darth Maul (also boxed).

But after the crushing disappointment of the prequel trilogy which were at best animated effect driven nonsense Star Wars went away. In fact forme it went away for a long time, then something changed, this year I bought my first Star Wars collectible in over 15 years, a Black Series Sandtrooper figurine, I'm 45 for gods sake and I'm buying toys!!

Here's my own run down of 10 Things the avid Star Wars collector probably bought into. Feel free to comment below if I've missed anything glaringly obvious.

1.) THE ORIGINAL KENNER STAR WARS FIGURES.
The license for Star Wars action figures was offered in 1976 to the Mego Corporation, which was the leading company in action figures in the 1970s. Mego refused the offer and the license was subsequently picked up by Kenner, a subsidiary of General Mills. Vader and Kenobi had those awful vinyl capes ( a mint vinyl cape Jawa is worth $2000) and the lightsabers slid out of the grooved sleeve area and had that really thin pointy bit that always bent. To top it off you could never have enough Stormtroopers. The holy grail of all the figures was the missile firing Boba Fett , which if you had a prototypes in mint condition can easily fetch up to $20,000.

2.) THE ORIGINAL KENNER SPACE CRAFT
It was either or during the late 70's, you either had the Millenium Falcon as your cornerstone vehicle or you had the AT-AT Walker which had that awesome firing mechanism where the laser canons lit up and moved when you pressed the button on the neck area. For Millenium Falcons owners you had the removable smugglers floor, the engine noise button and the central footstand which doubled as a hand grip to 'fly' it around the lounge.

3. THE TOPPS TRADING CARDS

The beauty about these things is that they never really went away but the original trilogy set were the ones that people remember most. The size of a playing card with a blue, red,orange, green or yellow border ( 5 sets in all) and an image from the film, on the reverse side of the card they made up a larger Star Wars image.

Highly coveted among collectors who hunt for full mint, unopened sets and all five sets equates to 330 cards, the more recent Clone Wars and prequel trilogies just aren't the same, however, I defy anyone not to croon over a modern foil or hologram effect card these days.

 

4. THE LUNCH BOX

Star Wars didn't come soon enough for me at school, 1975 and I got stuck lugging a Snoopy flask with soup in it and whatever lunchbox design was current and cheap to buy with Mackeral sandwiches. The Plastic ones were commonplace but all the cool kids, especially in America had these small metal suitcase affairs. The best one you could get was the sandtrooper road block cover. "Move along".

5. THE BEDROOM WALLPAPER

This stuff is currently going for $150 per roll (Ebay), vintage 1978 Star Wars Wallpaper, there was an Empire Strikes back one I remember with a cloud city design but alas, I think for the most part my 1970's and 80's were devoid of such cool bedroom design. Did you have Star Wars Wallpaper as a kid, if so which one?

6. STAR WARS PEZ

Who could ever forget the famous Austrian candy and its famous mechanical pocket dispensers.Why Star  Wars versions never really materialized until 1997 is anyone's guess - I still have an Imperial Stormtrooper unopened, ok so its only about 6 years old but I haven't had the heart to open it. I love the Vader one and the full range blossomed with the extremely limited and hard to find Crystal head versions of Vader, Yoda and C3PO back in 2012.

 

7. DARTH VADER CARRY CASE FOR FIGURES

 If you had one of these on our block you were pretty spoilt, everyone else just chucked their figures into the back of the Millenium Falcon or inside their AT-AT but opening one of these babies was like the scene in Pulp Fiction with the briefcase, the room when quiet and your mouth went dry as you waited to see if your buddy had full racks.

8. THE STAR WARS BED COVER

I can't claim to ever owning one of these, probably need to ask my mum why she denied me the joy of gracing my bed with this amazing woven delight, I mean, look at that blue, as bright as cobalt, that's enough to brighten anyone's morning.

9. THE STAR WARS T-SHIRT

Okay so you don't really collect a t-shirt as such but ownership was enough to declare your love of the science fiction juggernaught in your life at the time, all kinds of variants but lets not forget, it was the cool brush script fonts with the 70's flair that made it pop.

10. STAR WARS MARVEL COMICS

The art was awful, the characters bore no resemblance to their on-screen counterparts yet somehow the illustrated adventures inside kept us coming back for more. I've never really been a fan of these at all simply because the art sucked. Stan Lee was approached by Lucasfilm in 1975 for the comics to co-incide with the film but Stan Lee wanted to see the film finished. The comics ran from issue #1 through to #107 and lasted from 1977 through to 1986 with three annuals. Renowned comic book artist Howard Chaykin (American Flag) had art duties on issues #1 through #10. 

*As a side note there's a really cool 548 page book available on Amazon for the Topps card collectors called Star Wars : The orginal Topps trading Cards