What is my armor worth? Should I change it?

[Gamer47]

I made a suit of lamellar based off the following pattern (mostly):
http://www.armourarchive.org/patterns/l ... emplarbob/

Lamellar640x480.jpg (76.46 KiB) Viewed 684 times

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I have have 3 questions: 1. How much should I sell it for? 2. Should I open it up and add buckles/straps? 3. Will opening it

up increase it's value?

Roughly 29 pounds.
Braided nylon cord. Not para cord. The cord does not show any (apparent) shearing.
All cord ends are tied off and melted shut.
It has no buckles, it just slips over the head. If you cannot touch your toes then you will need a helper to take it off.
Holes are 5/32 in diameter.
It took over approx. 400 hours over 45 days to make.
Suede cord was woven through unused holes as decoration.
All plates have a somewhat waxy texture.
A total of 376 body plates + 56 shoulder plates + 2 shoulder straps = 434 separate pieces of metal.
All holes and edges are deburred.

Body plates:
I cut 16 gauge mild steel into plates 3.5" x 1.5" and drilled 7 holes in each. Most of the plates were then held over a fire
to color them (I thought leaving a few white would look nice). Finally they were dipped in water based polyurethane varnish.
The varnish caused a little bit of rust but then the rusting stopped. 328 of these plates make up the body.

Shoulder straps:
Each a single piece of stainless steel (from an old gutter) with a piece of towel laced to the top and 10 body plates laced to

the top.

Shoulder/upper arm guards:
Each shoulder piece is made of 14 body plates and 28 shoulder plates.
Each shoulder plate is 1.75" x 3 with 5 holes.
The shoulder pieces are flexible and will curve in both directions. The shoulder plates cover the tops of the arms while the

body plates attached to it hang over and cover the front and back sides of the arms. Do not jump while wearing as it will

jostle them off your arms.

I would like to thank Lord Robert' de Tyre Esquire, OW OQF OPF
MKA Robert L. Coleman, Jr. for his pattern http://www.armourarchive.org/patterns/l ... emplarbob/

Edit note: This was made before I even wanted to join the SCA, I just wanted to make a suit of armor that would reliably stop an axe and seemed sorta-kinda historically accurate.
Also, it was intended to open up on the left originally, it actually has a separate cord lacing the ends together so adding in the buckles isn't a lot of work.

[Sasha_Khan]

Without buckles, the sales potential of this is extremely limited, as getting it on or off - especially over an arming garment will be difficult.

[Andrea Ferrara]

Perhaps put a little effort in and cut the sides open and make it buckle closed, on a side note this is Hartman we met at sun practice glws man

[Halberds]

That is some very nice work.
Trouble is... I do not know how to price it.
I would think it would be worth quite a bit though.

Look at all the hours that went into it.
Not counting the cost of materials.

Best of luck on your quest.

Hal

[Sean Powell]

For real world pricing: Materials + labor + advertizing + shipping + slight markup.
For selling in the SCA market: Materials assuming modern mass production in india/china + 0% labor + 0% advertizing + shipping - donation for contributing to the good of the society.

It's a nice looking lamellar but most SCAdians would rather lace their own so they know it will fit and the buckles will be in the correct location and that they have matching cord for repairs and have extra plates for replacing bent ones etc. Unless you are lacing lamellar to fit a particular customer it's a tough product to sell.

As always, the best way to price a product is to see what the sale price was of the last one that sold was. Go check the classified section for auctions for lamellar as well as the per-plate cost for WMA Birka-D plates or plates from polar-bear forge (those I can think of off the top of my head)

Sorry I don't have a better answer.

Sean

[InsaneIrish]

1. Is it metal or leather?
2. If it is metal, is it steel, stainless steel, or aluminum?
3. If it is metal, how thick is the metal?
4. What size is it? How many inches around the waist?
5. Do you have any better pictures, perhaps of the plates up close?
6. what type of nylon cord? Paracord or just simpy woven nylon?

[Gamer47]

I put a full biography of the armor up. I had thought it was too much information.

[Thomas Powers]

Unfortunately the price is not based on your time and expenses but rather what the market has for items somewhat like it.

If you plan to sell you research *before* starting.

[Oddvarr]

I second what Sean Powell said, with a few additions:

Are the holes properly deburred? If so, show us a close up shot of a few of the plates...many people place a quarter or a ruler next to it to give it a sense of scale.

If they are like a certain type of existing/historical plate, look for what other vendors sell theirs for, then add a bit for the extra steps you mentioned...(coatings and color treatments) But...Only if those are persistent treatments that won't flake off from a few practices.

I put a full biography of the armor up. I had thought it was too much information.

On this forum, there is no such animal as "too much information"...If somebody does not like the details, they can skip reading it, or otherwise click to another topic.

IMHO, you will be best served by making samples of these plates, showing us what you can do, and then offering them at a competetive price vs. other "known entities" out there.

As Sean Powell already mentioned, most people want to put this sort of armor together themselves, not the least of which because many people like the feeling of making armor that this type provides, without all the other entanglements armoring usually entails. This is a simple project after all, relatively speaking.

Plates taped together in stacks and jammed into a flat rate box will cut down shipping costs too, which will attract more buyers.

Good luck,

Oddvarr

[Russ Mitchell]

I've sold lamellar armor for ~250 pre-recession that was in many ways comparable to that one. I've sold 3 or 4 completed lamellar sets to SCA guys total.
The good news: you're diligent and you have solid basic skills.
The bad news: you did a ton of work and created something that won't be saleable without extra labor -- buckles/straps DEFINITELY. And unfortunately, the amount of effort you put into it means zero for the selling price.
The better news: you've given yourself a very solid foundation for future work, which can be better-targeted.

This is a VERY heavy lamellar -- most don't use 16ga plates. That will sharply limit its appear to the SCA crowd because of its weight (in my experience selling lamellar to them), and I'd recommend finding a cosplay or Larp group with different rules where the weight won't be a selling issue or even Ebay.

[Frederich Von Teufel]

The topic of how to price armour has come up numerous times here on the Armour Archive and I, and others, have gone into detail about how to do so as well as how to improve the creation process so as to maximize the profitability. It would profit you to search down those topics as well as to read some of the articles in the Armouring Essays portion of the board.

As others have said, you have built a very competent suit of lamellar, and you've done a great job of tracking your costs on the project. You have spent hundreds of hours learning to make this piece of armour as an act of love and creation. Unfortunately, your competition already had the patterns, tools and skill that allowed them to create armour that was better suited to the combat re-enactor market; in the time you spent learning to make one suit, they made 20 and they made them in sizes and styles that can be made to fit the maximum variety of customers. To the customer, what matters is what differentiates your suit from other suits and whether that is of value to them. As a professional you can spread the "learning costs" over the hundreds of suits you will make; as an amateur who is never going to make another suit, you need to just accept that you are never going to make those learning cost back.