Aw, come on, JRX. Be nice.
The Rubie's FG LE originally sold for $900 (MSRP, I think). A few months ago, they dropped down to $500-ish. Most recently, one sold for $350-ish.
People say that the original Don Post Deluxe line started to warp towards the higher numbers of the 1,000 series. If there was mold deformation, I'd love to know what the specfic features are.
When I look at photos of people's Rubie's FG LE, the one thing I notice is that the features look off. I'm not sure if it's the paint job, as the paint job is obviously superior on the original Don Post Deluxe.
But I also wonder this: you have these molds that theoretically were used for a run of 1,000 (unles they were only allowed small number of pulls from those molds which they'd have to then in turn make molds of their own, unless prohibited in their license agreement with LFL).
If those very same molds went to Rubie's, then those molds had already had 1,000 masks pulled out of them.
Rubie's FG LE was an edition of 5,000.
Right now Photobucket's down for maintenance, but I'll post some shots of some of the features I see.
In theory, the Rubie's FG LE Number 1/5,000 is not going to look better than the DP Deluxe's 1,000/1,000 -- if any of this is accurate.