Hi guys, Jonathan here, I’m Keeper of Firearms & Artillery at the RA, a life-long SW fan, and I’m acquiring the blasters for the museum. As a kind soul on YouTube said, yes, I’m afraid I do have the best job in the world, although I don’t just play with guns all day as my wife maintains.
We’ve been planning to make a post on here but I’ve been away in the US and inevitably you’ve beaten us to it
As a prop fan myself as well as museum curator, I quite understand your scepticism about two previously unknown examples. I spent many hours of research here and elsewhere getting my head around these things. If I may;
-The welded bolt is the result of over-zealous deactivation carried out in 2000. Sad, because we could have preserved them intact. But as I’m sure you’ll know, there are no 100% intact original ‘hero’ blasters of either pattern, for either ANH or ESB.
-I probably shouldn’t reveal the vendor, but rest assured that these are coming from the most reliable source possible. Their provenance is as solid as it gets.
I did confuse matters in the launch video by talking about the DH-17s on the Tantive IV, but that was in the interest of non-prop fans understanding which broad type it represented. The prop is genuine, but also something of a mystery. I’ve spoken to everyone that might know, including Carl Schmidt, and unfortunately his memory of building these for ANH and ESB is not good. Given the number of things he’s built and his total lack of interest in SW (no disrespect intended, the man is a legend and a national treasure), this is to be expected
However, we’ve every reason to believe that this was created for ESB and either cut from the final movie, or not filmed in the first place (quite likely given that it’s live fire and ESB made extensive use of ‘rubber ducks’). It’s a fascinating transitional piece between the longer (than ANH) version with magwell that’s seen in ESB and the ROTJ piece in the LucasFilm Ltd archive (also not seen on screen as you will know).
-The scope rail on the E-11 is definitely not ANH, but I believe it to be ESB (although see below). There is a repro Hengstler box on there which is there because LFL used both of these as reference when designing the F-11D, which is perhaps my favourite thing about this piece; it's the missing link between OT live-fire Sterling-based E-11 & TFA/TLJ solid guns with their flipped magwells, electronic faux recoil systems, and other redesigned features.
-Finally, there is an outside chance that both of these were put into their current configurations by Bapty post-ESB, anticipating work on ROTJ, before it became apparent that they would not be working on that movie. However, that's just a theory that I came up with that isn't supported by any evidence. There isn't the corporate history to bottom that one out, unless LFL have something in their archives.
I hope that helps. It’s possible that more might come to light, but I fear more than this is lost to history. As you might imagine I (and we in general) are very excited about preserving these not just for the nation, but the world. The advantage of them being deactivated is that once we have them, they could travel on loan to a museum anywhere in the world without restrictions on live (prohibited most places) firearms.
Anything you can do to help would be be greatly appreciated - I’m sure you have some contacts and networks that I don’t. I have only recently (and reluctantly) made a foray into social media -
https://www.facebook.com/jonathan.ferguson.56829
Thanks everyone.
Jonathan