OK,
So what am I missing?
The mold Rick Baker made was on a production made helmet , yes?
Not screen used but production made from the same mold as the screen used one.
This has a hole where the subsequent castings (GH and all the rest in the Don Post tree)indicate there was a hole on the one Baker molded where the tab was removed.
The dip in the cleanup of the neck is where subsequent castings in the Don Post helmet family tree indicate there was a dip.
Why couldn't this be the production made casting sent for molding that created these "tells" in the first place?
Just asking...
As Carsten indicated the Baker/ILM mold was taken off the original screen helmet, which was of course painted at the time. This knowledge, which both Darth Jones and myself related before, is based on three accounts of people who worked for ILM and saw the Lucasfilm mold in person, including our own Darth Jones, who used to work for ILM and who has a copy from that mold. Also my own casting from that mold has innumerable tells specific to the original ANH helmet...even paint-specific tells. This has also been born out by what eFX has described their master helmet as coming from, namely the same mold, and eFX also indicates it was Rick Baker that made took the mold off the original screen-used ANH helmet.
There are no holes on the Don Post derivative castings, nor even impressions of holes, which is not surprising since the holes were filled in prior to molding of the original ANH mask by Rick Baker, and subsequent Don Post derivatives are so cleaned up as that detail on the top of the filled holes is essentially gone.
The GH/Jeff/Fyberdyne masks don't have that small indentation on Vader's left side of the neck edge. There might be a tiny hint of it left over on the GH ANH master, but that just supports the idea that the auction helmet is a Don Post helmet, not an original.
Below is a comparison of the GH ANH master mask, which I used to own, the PIH mask and a poor Fyberdyne pull. The indentation on the neck is much more pronounced on the PIH mask, just as you see on the SL ANH. This indentation is not seen on the original ANH mask, and is particular to masks taken from the Baker/ILM mold.
You will also notice that the teeth width and teeth gap width are nearly identical on the auction mask to the GH ANH master mask, and this is not a coincidence. But they are not accurate to the original ANH, but specific to the Don Post lineage, again supported this is a Don Post mask, not an original ANH mask. Sure they could have modified a production original, but the auction specifically claims this is a screen-used original ANH and that's impossible because we have strong indication that it survived mostly intact through ESB and ROTJ, not to mention the claim about the source of this auction helmet not holding water, namely coming from SDS.
