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It should go without saying that even though an entity, any entity for that matter, issues a COA, the item should still be scrutinized. Similarly, any claims by an individual should also be scrutinized. As with any hobby where large sums of money are paid by individuals for rare items, there will be attempts at fakes and forgeries. It happens in every mature collecting marketplace, which is why I defend Gino for blowing the whistle. I don't think his claims were baseless. If we were to look at the circumstances present, without necessarily filtering them through the terse feelings for Gino, it was a very disturbing chain of events:
1) Joe owns production used ROTJ helmet
2) Joe has molds made in the hopes of producing replicas (which apparently doesn't happen); this is not openly known by most members
3) Joe sells original helmet
4) Months later, Joe scores another ROTJ helmet, production used although not finished
But it was utterly baseless, he added 2 and 2 and made 5. He provided no photographic evidence, that is because the helmets are very different and there is none.
I do find it odd that you defend him 'blowing the whistle', I would define his blowing the whistle as creating wild claims with zero factual evidence. He did this because he was jealous of me owning a second original and secondly because I refused to do a run with him. He has a bizarre obsession with having to own the 'only' moulds from originals, some kind of weird superiority complex.
I question your assertion that PsoL should be questioned over forum members with ZERO experience of originals, they are in possession of multiple original stormtrooper helmets and spent months researching this helmet.
This thread has run its course now, the helmet is original and I have rock solid provenance, a full back story and a PsoL COA. If any 'armchair experts' disagree, they are welcome to their opinion.
Here's pic of my new helmet, the PsoL location helmet, and my old background studio helmet and the MG/DM/GH or whoever owns it now helmet.
Not perfect angles but it is obvious the new helmet is nothing like the old background helmet. The ears are from totally different moulds, the same moulds as the location helmet.
Joe