History of Stormtrooper Helmets

August 4, 2008

Storm Trooper Helmets

If you are a true fanatic of the Star Wars saga, then one of the absolutely must haves for a true collector is the Imperial Storm Trooper helmet. The Storm Troopers were the faces of evil that spread fear into the enemies of the Empire. Who can forget the look of the first Storm Trooper that blasted their way through the councilor ship door opening fire on everyone that stood in their way. The shiny white armor and the cool helmets that were adorned on these Imperial soldiers were both terrifying and beautiful at the same time.

With the almost robotic sounding voice and the extremely cool design, it is of no great wonder that these Storm trooper helmets would become one of the hottest and highly sought after collectibles from the Star Wars Universe. With the intent for commercialism, several companies had bought the necessary licenses for producing quality replicas of these fantastic helmets. Here we will take a small look into a much larger world and what some of these design concepts are.

Don Post Stormtrooper Helmets

Don Post Studios was the first company to obtain the license to produce the Storm Trooper helmet replicas. They started production of these replicas in 1977 and continued to do so until 1999. Don Post studios have created 3 versions of the Storm Trooper helmet that were available for purchase. These versions were the Standard, Deluxe and Classic models.

The standard helmet which was the first replica retailed for $39.95 in 1977 and later was revised with clear lenses in 1978. Over the next nine years, the standard model would take on a few small changes here and there. The original standard model was molded from a heavy PVC plastic with dark tinted lenses. One of the changes came about ion 1979 with clear lenses and a lighter PVC plastic used in the molding. In 1988, due to a reaction with a new plastic that was being used, the standard model took on a slightly different shape. In 1989 and 1990 the foam band around the front of the helmet was replaced with a molded in piece.

The Don Post Studios Deluxe was a limited edition Storm trooper helmet with only 1000 produced worldwide. These Deluxe Storm Trooper helmets were produced in 1996 and retailed for $600-$750. these single piece helmets were molded from fiberglass. This made them very heavy and robust as well as almost unbearable discomfort in wearing them. The Deluxe model was molded with reflective symmetry. This just means that the left side is a mirror of the right side.

The same time that Don Post Studios marketed the deluxe models for their Storm Trooper helmets, they also released a Classic model. These Classic models were produced using the same molding as the Deluxe models, but was made from vinyl instead of fiberglass and was a two piece helmet. They are foam padded and lighter than the previous models. Due to the much cheaper cost than the other two models, you can still find this Classic model on the shelves in retail stores and are very popular among collectors.

Altmanns Armor Stormtrooper Helmets

From 1996 – 2002 these replica Star Wars helmets were produced exclusively by Altmann's Armour for the areas of Australia and New Zealand. Altmann's Armour developed two models for the Storm trooper helmet. These are the Standard and limited models. Hard impact plastic was used in the molding for both models and are considered to better quality than the Don Post Studios Standard models, though there were some scale inaccuracies. 500 limited edition models were released in 1996. Each one of these helmets contained a numbered sticker on the inside of the helmet. They were also re-released as a non- numbered helmet in 1998.

After Don Post Studios canceled their license, Rubies took over in 2000 and are still the current license holder. With most of Rubies attention focused on the prequel Storm trooper helmets, they have produced six classic Storm Trooper helmet models including the 1994-1996 Don Post Studios Standard model. Due to the fact that flaws of the Don Post models were not addressed, the reviews of Rubies models released was met with criticism from Storm Trooper armor enthusiast and collectors.

The original designs for the Storm Trooper helmets were discovered to still be in possession of Shepperton Design Studios in 2003. With this discovery, original Storm Trooper helmet designer Andrew Ainsworth began work for the production of the stunt trooper helmet. These helmets have a fascinating resemblance to the original Storm Trooper helmets that we see in the movies.

Modern Day Stormtrooper Helmets

Two companies have manufactured Stormtrooper helmets in recent years and these are two of the more common examples that you will find on Ebay and Amazon. Masters Replicas and eFX both produced versions of the Stormtrooper helmets that are deemed to be highly collectible and high quality.

eFX recently was allocated a production run of only 500 helmets making them sure to be future collectibles and are highly sought after. Prices vary currently but you can still find reasonable examples on Ebay. You won't go wrong with either of these helmets as they both seem to have been well received by the Star Wars community with the eFX version apparently having an edge.

Make sure you don't confuse a Limited Edition Collectible Stormtrooper helmet with some of the cheaper and lower quality Halloween type helmets. You can expect to pay a few hundred dollars for a high quality helmet that will be more collectible than some of the lower end helmets.

If a Stormtrooper Helmet is on your wish list then get to looking because these things may not be around forever.