Hello guys,
Sorry for my late reply. I just found this thread.
I understand you guys have your doubts.
Here´s how the story goes on my side.
I did live in Paris (2006 - April 2009) and while I was there I purchased one TM ROTJ helmet (fully finished).
I was worried because time was going by and I still had not received my helmet. If I remember correctly at some point, Jesper was not available due to personal reasons? And Darth Niob was kind enough to contact Jesper to try and figure out what went wrong with my helmet. I did not receive a tracking number but received a parcel number instead.
After the financial crisis hit (I was working for a French fund) I decided to quit my job and go back home to Chile (Santiago), where I currently live.
Upon my decision I contacted Darth Niob in order to let Jesper know that the shipping address I had given him for my helmet to be delivered in Paris (49 Rue Saint André des Arts, 6eme) would now have to be changed for my address in Chile since I was giving back my apartment in Paris.
I went back to Chile and contacted customs to ask them if anything had arrived for me using the parcel number. They told me that they couldn´t do anything to track down my box using only the parcel number and that they needed a tracking number to do so instead. Again I got in touch with Darth Niob to explain this but unfortunately was not able to get a tracking number. He told me someone in Brasil had used a parcel number and it worked for him. It didn´t work for me.
Time passed and I did purchase some other items and I started getting suspicious since I did not receive those items either...
Then recently I purchased new items but this time, changed my delivery address from work to home and used my girlfriend´s name as the recipient and this time I did receive my items!
Now I believe that someone in our Chilean customs realised about all these Star Wars items coming in for me and maybe decided to keep them... I have spoken to customs and shipping companies operating here and their organisation is a big mess, they all told me nothing could be done.
I have been a serious collector for some time now and have some interesting high end items in my collection.
Most of you would agree that the fact of a recast of any of these items would be shooting myself on the foot since these items would be more available and hence less hard to find, loosing some of its value.
On the other hand, I couldn´t recast anything even if I wanted to just for the simple reason that I have no clue how to do this, I really don´t have the skills or knowledge to do this.
Many of my purchases have been either finished, detailed, painted and put together by someone else (talented people here or in the RPF because of this. That´s why I purchased a finished TM ROTJ from Jesper and not in kit form.
I have even been looking in our latin american "Ebay" just to see if anyone shows up selling any of the items not received but nothing so far.
www.deremate.cl or
www.mercadolibre.clI really don´t like recasts, recasters or anything alike. I love my props and specially love them knowing that there are very few of them out there.
Please believe me, I have not received my helmet to this date and that is my loss, but accusing me of recasting is something totally different.
I´m happy to help if you have any questions.
PS: Thomas, I read you sent me an email but have not received it. By any chance, did you send it to my hotmail account? If yes, I closed that account recently. Please use my other email address you have.
Kind regards,
DIF