I just received this "unpainted" Leia Boushh helmet from a Uk seller( no longer out of Ebay )
Was listed as an autentic factory Unpainted , but i have some doubts...Have "dirty/paint remains" at some point.the break point on top looks clear of paint...
The Helmet looks different from the others i Have,( TW and HK )It have sligthly lighter colour, the material is a bit softer and the surface looks like "bitten" plastic(even in the inner part).Its almost identical to the one sold by our TIG member Chazgreentooth
I Need to know if this is real or fake before paypal claim....
Any thoughts about this helmet ??
Any help will be very appreciated...

THANKS IN ADVANCE
Javi

Hola Javi,

The helmet looks OK to me. It should have come with a Taiwan coo Leia Boushh, did it?

Saludos

Carlos

Bigger with TW mold circle etc are all good signs yet I still doubt mine too

Hola Carlos!!
Yes ,The figure comes with a TW figure
Thanks for your Help!!you know i appreciate it very much
Un abrazo!!
JAvi

Anytime, Javi, that is what friends are for....

@ Aussiejames: Why do you still doubt yours?

llseeker wrote:

@ Aussiejames: Why do you still doubt yours?

I just never bothered to confirm it with anyone else, it came with a no COO figure , was cheap & looks 'dirty'
Which Taiwan figure should it belong too? torso molded in brown or beige ?
EDIT: found the old thread http://threads.rebelscum.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=1170904&page=&view=&sb=5&o=&fpart=1&vc=1 dirty is a good thing

For me your both helmets are stripped!

Javis is smooth on the inside and rough on the outside! This indicates that they are stripped. Some stripped are rough over all and most stripped you can find tiny rest from the color in the point on top!
99% of the helmets out there are stripped IMO!
There is only a handfull originals and most of them are Ledy overstock. These are glossy and smooth on the outside!

Think of all othe accessories...there is no dull and rough surfaced lando helmet etc.! If the material is just as it is and was never painted it cannot look like this!

The solvents make the material swelling and change the look from the surface!






Im sorry for you but I would return your helmets.


Take for example this pic:


You can see the differences on the surface very good! From left to right:
2 original painted ones
1 original unpainted (glossy and smooth surface)
(the pink one Im not sure)
last 2 are stripped!!!!!!


Wolff

wbobafett wrote:

There is only a handfull originals and most of them are Ledy overstock. These are glossy and smooth on the outside!


Wolff

Ledy helmets have TW mold circle or a HK letter (A-E?)?

must be with letter!

well seems like Im the only ione who thinks its stripped...I just checked the RS thread!

So decide for yourself:

An unpainted example..does the surface have to look like the surface in unpainted areas from painted TW ones?? For me this a clear YES! slightly glossy and smooth!

(I made a few strip researches myself 2 years ago. To check how easy you can strip off the color. My results where:
- Letter once are more hard to strip. The colors "bleed" into the plastic so you have spots remaining
- circle once are much more easy to strip. But the surface changes by the material swelling and getting rougher. Also the dot on top gets larger and gets the typical "lamellas"....

Since I made these tests I gave up finding a legit one! Because I never saw one for sale! The only one was a Ledy one from overstock. These seem to be more common!

To be sure for 100% Im thinking of making a few blacklight tests from my own examples! Maybe I have some spare time today!)

Wolff

Hi Guys

Although im not a loose collector i did look into adding unpainted boushh helmets to www.imperialgunnery.com but i still had some unresolved questions that i wanted to answer before putting the information out there.

The biggest problem i have is (to my knowledge) none of these unpainted helmets have turned up on production MOC's - as far as i know - If someone knows of a MOC Boushh with unpainted Helmet i would love to see some pics

Here are some pictures i have of Unpainted Boushh Helmets saved in my email.

Unpainted Leia Boushh Helmet 1 - Pictures courtesy of Bill
















Unpainted Leia Boushh Helmet 2 - Pictures courtesy of Shane Turgeon

I bite tongue! The names are now getting too big!
(ahhh what matters: first one stripped IMO, second one looks good on surface...but the point at the top which seems to have color rests would make me nerveous...pics are not good enough so....probably real!)


You are right Jay....a MOC never showed up! This really is a curiosity! Because normally nothing else is etablished on RS if there is no MOC! In this case its not and even better: There is also pics in the main site picture archive!
:scratch: :scratch: :scratch:

I always wondered about that fact.....but hey...the mods nearly all seem to have one

....

There was some threads on RS that Shane made but I couldn't find them..

FWIW and just my personal opinion on the unpainted Boushh helmet - I don't believe it was an intended variation at all and if it is real its just because a factory didn't paint their helmets at some point in time, or 1 in every 100 Boushh helmets slipped through unpainted. Outside of that notion its hard for me to believe its on par with something like a tri fett vs HK fett for example.

Despite my opinion of the variation (i.e I don't believe in it and I do indeed think many are easily stripped to cater for people wanting to buy this variation) I am sure Shane did his legwork and tried to document the variation best he could- like I said I remember the threads I just can't find them, I don't think anyones making things up, although people will always mess with figures to create wanted variations after they are discovered (that fault lies with the scammer and not the person who may have first discovered it or made it public knowledge)

Joe_O wrote:

I don't believe it was an intended variation at all and if it is real its just because a factory didn't paint their helmets at some point in time, or 1 in every 100 Boushh helmets slipped through unpainted.

...you better add a few painted samples...lets say 1 of 100.000 slipped through....

As I said....maximum a handfull is legit.....and millions of painted Taiwans are out there

Wolff

Joe_O wrote:

There was some threads on RS that Shane made but I couldn't find them..

FWIW and just my personal opinion on the unpainted Boushh helmet - I don't believe it was an intended variation at all and if it is real its just because a factory didn't paint their helmets at some point in time, or 1 in every 100 Boushh helmets slipped through unpainted. Outside of that notion its hard for me to believe its on par with something like a tri fett vs HK fett for example.

Despite my opinion of the variation (i.e I don't believe in it and I do indeed think many are easily stripped to cater for people wanting to buy this variation) I am sure Shane did his legwork and tried to document the variation best he could- like I said I remember the threads I just can't find them, I don't think anyones making things up, although people will always mess with figures to create wanted variations after they are discovered (that fault lies with the scammer and not the person who may have first discovered it or made it public knowledge)

I agree Joe i think Shane looked into it a few years back.

Im just not comfortable with something that i cant confirm was released MOC if there was 100% MOC version with an un-tampered seal then i would feel much better about things.

There is still quite a bit about this variation that's up in the air imo then add to that a large number of clearly stripped helmets been sold on eBay and its hard locate all the concrete facts.

Chaz highlights in this thread how easy its to strip the helmet just using your thumb nail (i've tried this and its pretty easy to do)

http://threads.rebelscum.com/showflat.php?Cat=5&Board=UBB1&Number=3884906&Forum=f1&Words=helmet&Searchpage=0&Limit=25&Main=3884906&Search=true&where=bodysub&Name=&daterange=1&newerval=5&newertype=y&olderval=&oldertype=&bodyprev=#Post3884906

It does seem the paint in more flaky on the Taiwan painted helmets.

Here is one of the main RS threads on the subject (there's a few more as well ill try and dig them up)

http://threads.rebelscum.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=1170904&page=&view=&sb=5&o=&fpart=all&vc=1

What i didnt want to do last year was add the unpainted helmet to this page - http://www.imperialgunnery.com/helmetsandhoods.htm

Not until i could be 100% about the information i was adding anyway.

Cheers Jay

Yep was only an example but I agree, 1 in xxxxxxxxxxxx for sure.

In fact, the reason they exist in higher numbers than most paint errors is probably because they were an accessory and not a figure piece, makes more sense to me that less care was given to painting accessories, there really wasn't too many helmets in the line or even accessories that needed painting so makes sense more were unpainted on the factory.

Wolff!!!

Nice to talk to you again....

I think the helmets are legit due to 2 facts:

1. Like some guys have said, I have noticed too that the TW Leia boushh helmet is fairly easy to strip even without using solvents, so why soak it in then?
2. If they were the work of a scammer the market would be flooded with them and as far as I know there aren't many around. On the other hand the unpainted helmets have been around for quite a while, before people even started noticing them as interesting "variations" (to me they are more a production error than a variation).

My 2 cents

Carlos

Take a look at this guys, maybe it sheds some more light on this topic.



- Left figure: Ledy Boushh with Ledy overstock helmet, bought from Chaz about a year ago.
- Right figure: Leia Boushh with Kenner unpainted helmet (and unpainted Ledy torso, Kenner production limbs), bought from Adam Burges via ebay. According to the COA that came with it, the unpainted helmet is a first shot.






There are clearly differences between the two unpainted helmets as you can see in the pics below (colour, surface structure).
Both the painted and unpainted Ledy helmets have a "F" inside, whereas the unpainted Kenner helmet has a mould circle inside.

Left: Ledy production helmet. Middle: Ledy unpainted overstock helmet. Right: Kenner unpainted helmet.



Left: Ledy production helmet. Middle: Ledy unpainted overstock helmet. Right: Kenner unpainted helmet.



Left: Ledy production helmet. Middle: Ledy unpainted overstock helmet. Right: Kenner unpainted helmet.



What do you think guys?

All pre production unpainted helmets I know of have letters inside. I still am dubious about the unpainted 'Kenner' with mold circle (Taiwan helmet)

Hehehe...I still doubt every unpainted helmet I have seen besides the Ledy ones (overstock). certificates are made by humans...failures can happen...

The unpainted Boushh helmet intrigues me. As it is so difficult to grasp the differences by pictures alone ('look and feel'), I decided to purchase a few (starting Mai 2010) . Right now I have five different types of unpainted helmets in front of me from different sources. Time for some field research to hopefully shed some more light upon this issue.

Before starting I would like to know what is the exact difference between a Taiwan and HK production helmet.

My understanding: Compared to the HK helmet, the Taiwan helmet:
- has a more yellowish colour
- has a bit shorter nose. EDIT: turns out to be not true, see next post
- has a mould circle instead of letters inside

Is this correct?

Are there also HK production helmets with a mould circle inside?

Please let me know, guys.

Before starting with the unpainted helmets, I thought it might be good to do a little bit reseach on the Kenner production helmets. Based upon one Taiwan and three Hong Kong helmets (all Kenner) the following observations were made:







So the main distinctive traits of the Taiwan helmet seemed to be the big mould circle inside, and the lack of height difference between the two half circles at the top (look at the pics to understand what I mean here).

Things started to be a bit confusing when looking at the Taiwan helmet on TIG's reference site. The helmet has a mould circle as well which seemed OK, but there is also a height difference between the two half circles.



So there are two Taiwan moulds? One with and one w/o height difference of the two half circles? :scratch:

The reason I ask is because two of the unpainted helmets have a mould circle inside AND a height difference between the two half circles.

Need some input here pls.

I have a Taiwan with a height difference & my unpainted has no height difference, also have yellow & orange Hong Kongs ( but may be due to fading?)

aussiejames wrote:

I have a Taiwan with a height difference & my unpainted has no height difference, also have yellow & orange Hong Kongs ( but may be due to fading?)

Thanks AJ for your input.

Your Taiwan helmet with height difference: is it matt and a bit more yellowish (dull orange) compared to a HK helmet? Does it have a mould circle inside?

BTW: I also have a pale yellow HK helmet, fading I guess.

"is it matt and a bit more yellowish (dull orange) compared to a HK helmet? Does it have a mould circle inside?"
yes,yes & yes & came with my brown plastic molded torso Taiwan variant.