[Tyler A Konrade]

Hey! Ive been lurking around these forums for awhile, always been fascinated with history, especially arms and armor. Great site love the info!
Anyways without getting too much off track, I recently purchased some armor pieces from a guy who got them out of a storage container, no background on them. I thought they were intriguing enough to buy, as from my relatively inexperienced viewpoint they seem to have certain characteristics you dont typically see when looking at similar modern armor availabe, at least as far as I can tell.

What really got me was the "Proof Marks" or what have you that were punched in this thing. Ive been searching for awhile trying to find the marks in relation to Armor Makers but havent had any luck.

The hinges also seemed questionable to me

If anybody could help me ID this or at least give me some information on it I would be extremely grateful. Literally any advice or info given would be much appreciated!

[Michael P. Smith]

Modern reproductions. Probably for SCA-style combat. I do not recognize the maker's marks.

Not bad for what they are, but not really worth that much.

[Tyler A Konrade]

Okay thanks. So what are you looking for in particular that made you come to that conclusion? I'm asking just so that I can better educate myself. Is it the hinges? The metal itself?

Any particular things about it that point to a time when it could've been made? The guy had just the one leg and one arm harnesses, which to me was odd, but maybe not.

Also, is there a database of some sorts where you can find armorer marks? Ive been trying to find those marks for hours lol. No luck.

Here's a couple more pics

[Mikko Kuusirati]

The first photo gives a really good look at the texture of the metal, which clearly shows it to be modern rolled sheet steel.

The patina and corrosion are 100% consistent with a modern, slightly neglected harness. The absence of accumulated grime in the nooks and crannies, together with the dirty and corroded surfaces implying no cleaning that could remove such accumulations, also says that it can't be more than a few decades old.

The overall shaping of all the parts makes it obvious that they were cut and bent from flat sheet stock, and the resulting forms are not quite the same as seen on historical armour - functionally close enough for government work if it sits well, but perceptibly modern.

There are no hammer marks, even in the inner nooks and crannies where you'd expect they might have escaped clean-up, except on some of the rivet heads.

The edges of the plates, both rolled and plain, are not formed nor finished the same way as on historical pieces I've seen.

The component parts are not fitted together in quite the same way as on historical armour. It's hard to explain in detail; you can probably get a clearer impression of the difference if you simply look closely at a bunch of museum photographs (such as in our very own photo albums) than from my inexpert yammerings.

The hinges are, indeed, obviously modern, and not made for this purpose, either: the maker just walked into a hardware store and grabbed some stock standard butt hinges straight off the shelf.

The rivet heads are also modern - again, off-the-shelf hardware store stuff. I wouldn't be surprised if they were actually carriage bolts.

And the maker's stamps look very clearly modern to me, at that, both in style and execution.

[Nathan Robinson]

Yes, these are modern made. You may be able to find more information on the maker by showing the maker's marks on The Armour Archive forum. There are a lot of armourers there to help.