Jedi Reali
Sr Member
Agreed about the dirt, pitting, rust, substantial and consistent throughout, leading me to think it's real too. Red button and glass eye should be easy to confirm or deny with more pics.
Agreed about the dirt, pitting, rust, substantial and consistent throughout, leading me to think it's real too. Red button and glass eye should be easy to confirm or deny with more pics.
I would do a "smell test" on both tubes. The vintage ones develop a unique odor. A weathered replica won't have old metal battery compartment odor.
I know this sounds weird but both of mine have it and I've heard others here mention the same thing.
Agreed about the dirt, pitting, rust, substantial and consistent throughout, leading me to think it's real too. Red button and glass eye should be easy to confirm or deny with more pics.
Hey @James Kenobi 1138 ! Do you have a Parks V1 or a photo of one from the top looking down on the Red Button hole? I know the current replicas are not round nor as complete a circle in the "shoulders" when viewed from above/below.
Hey @JRHunter13 ! Flip that Red Button out to the side and take a close up picture of it from below and from the front where you can see the "protractor" ends coming together. I don't know a thing about the Parks V1, but that's another area where the current replicas are off.
Excellent. It looks like you have early versions of both the red button and glass eye there. These are harder to find, and more desirable because it's generally suspected that the ANH Graflex was an early Folmer, and would have had these variations on it. On the red button you can see that the cuts in the knurling run high, slightly above the ridges and onto the sloped edge of the top. The glass eye surround has a sharp, flat drop to the glass inside rather than a curve, and a duller finish than the more common later versions. If you haven't decided which conversion to do yet I'd highly recommend making an ANH saber out of this. Nice find.
That's fantastic news!!! Thanks for the information! Yes, as the tittle of my thread suggests I am indeed doing an ANH build and I guess I'm in luck, as you have suggested, as it seems I've obtained the G R A F L E X widely believed by the community to be the one used in ANH. (More specifically was that one believed to have no patent #? That's the impression I was under.) still to own an older folmer I couldn't be happier!
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Haha, good, I'm glad you're happy with it!
I am also under the impression that it would have had no patent number, and an earlier version clamp, neither of which yours has. (The tell on the clamp is the head of the pin on the lever.) Parts on this thing could've been swapped 70 years ago though. It's still a great piece for an ANH saber. :thumbsup
Nevermind, I forgot you posted a pic of the lever in the first post. That lever looks legit to me and not a replica.
If i would want to fake a Graflex for max profit, i would use clamp, red button, glasseye, additional bunnyears and rivet from my partboxes. Maybe even combine the replica body with a real black insert - all parts that anyone would have after building a Vader ROTJ stunt (and more parts after years of collecting).
Even buying a 2cell for parts, add them to the replica body could make a 3 cell that fools many buyers. Additional sell the real leftovers from the 2cell and the replica parts to a saber builder. With that actions someone could easily double the spended money for a nice profit.
I don´t think more pics would really help. At some point you just have to believe.