At some point between London Film Con and the recent prop store auction, the Apone armor display got mixed up.

Here is a thread from 2013.
search.php?author_id=19&sr=posts
You can see that the "london film con" version had different style knee pads, different ab pad, different BDU.
yet same upper M3 body armor.
These knee pads are very different from anything ive seen. are they early repros,sure dont seem screen used?
There is a story here somewhere. Who was the owner during film con, and what were the components at that time?
yknow what the shin guards look like to me? PROTOTYPE ARMOR DRAWING.

That's very odd... It would suck majorly if someone pulled a fast one and switched out something repro for something screen-used hoping the owner wouldn't notice!
Hope there's been no nefariousness going on here

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In this recent prop store video , around 3:30, this apone armor still has the screen used ab pad with it.
HMMMM... maybe better to sell a bunch of sets with semi-screen used armor, then one complete one.

Something tells me we'll be seeing that ab pad and a few other odds n ends popping up for sale soon.
Maybe another "screen used" set.

notice how the belt is used to cover the camo pattern on the ab pad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ix5g9I2Lm7c

The history of this piece, as far as I know, is this:

- The original buyer at the Bohnams 1987 auction at Riverside Studios in London.
- Owner 1.
- Propstore, who owned it at the time the London Film & Comic Con took place back in 2004.
- Owner 3.
- Owner 4, who consigned the piece into the Propstore Live Auction 2020 (Lot 25).

Propstore sold it in the 'Comic Con' configuration but at least one of the two other buyers (3 and 4) must have found more accurate components and swapped them out. It's well known that the sets in the '87 Bonhams auction were mixed up in terms of uniform and armour components.

Hope this helps!

Harry

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Excellent info Harry!
I once saw photos from someone with 4 or 5 screen worn BDU sets.
Also read a story where someone saw the costumes before Bonhams and was offered everything for 25k, but can't confirm that.

Does this help?

http://alienscollection.com/armorprops/aponechart.jpg

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As fas as the ab pad getting switched out, I know they've been mixed up among collectors for years, so it may have been swapped for a proper one. Do we know whose ab pad is actually pictured with the armor?

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we dont have details of the ab pad that is seen in the propstore archive YouTube video.
But the auction photos apear to be a Noble ab pad and a chef grenade harness.
I am also very interested in the greaves from the old display photo before propstore had it. they appear to be much like the concept photo that James cameron drew up and I dont believe they were seen in screen. The upper body armor pattern is consistent throughout.

Propstore says here the vinyl is replica:

https://propstore.com/mobile/product/al ... r-costume/

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yes the ab pad is a replica in the one they auctioned. but before they auctioned it, they had a diff screen used ab pad with it. look at the youtube video. or the two photos side by side. I'm saying that they had the screen used one in their posetion, with that armor, and then swapped it out for a Noble replica when they decided to auction the set. They probably figure that its better to sell multiple sets that are partly screen used with some repro stuff since the individual pieces dont match the same actor anyway.

Having been involved in several "ab-pad trades" with various collectors - I don't think anything nefarious was going on - the first one may have been labeled for a different character (a lot have character's names written on them in marker on the back), and it was simply a case of re-uniting, say, a Frost ab-pad with a Frost set. Happens often as collectors try and reunite all their mixed components.

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thats what im thinkin

I provided some parts for this. The grenade straps are mine.

(used available 2in cotton webbing I could find in the US)

Auction was pretty specific on what was replica, not sure why some online

people complained about that.

awesome, that makes sense about the straps, I was wondering why theyd use two separate makers for the pad and straps had they not just had them on hand. I really wanna screen match that original ab pad now and id the original "concept" greaves. Would be amazing if they were piecing together another full suit to sell, possibly with something that hasnt been seen yet.

Anyone know anything about these greaves. sure dont look like the standard ones.
could they have been made first and then the design was simplified for times sake? or were they made after as repros that weren't fully accurate? custom order request?

Oh wow I noticed they looked different also. Super cool!

I have a small update; the greaves on display at the London Film & Comic Con in 2004 were indeed most likely replicas, probably made by Terry English. There was a short time when Terry updated his templates and things went a bit awry for a while, meaning things weren't as accurate as they should have been, such as the groin-plate on this replica set.


Which should of course look like this:


There's a chance that the greaves could have been deliberately made to look like the prototype ones. Again Terry for a while made a few armour sets that featured details he wanted to include but didn't have time to do. Needless to say this didn't go down that well with customers as they wanted what they saw on screen.

As Willie mentioned the changes reflect us collectors doing what we can to make these sets as close as possible to how they should have originally been.

Harry

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