- September 19th, 2008, 2:17 pm#68153
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It is my intent, in time to bring future updates concerning my Ghostbusters uniform to this topic under the idea of making a 'Blog like' topic which Jose suggested.
However for now, I'll start this topic with a different project for two reasons, firstly because whilst there have been some updates concerning the jumpsuit, this one is closer to completion. The second reason is that this isn't related to Ghostbusters. Here is a small teaser of what I'm planning to wear this Halloween:
Kingpin's NYPD uniform
This project reached it's first major step thanks to a lucky win on eBay. For quite some time I'd wanted to own a New York Police Department Patrolman's cap, being the New York obsessive I am. There was something aesthetically pleasing about the design of the Patrolman's cap as well as stylish, and my interest was rekindled after I'd chanced across a British Army peaked cap that had belonged to a member of the Royal Electrical & Mechanical Engineers for the bargain price of £5 from a charity shop (although I would've gladly paid the original price of £10 had they not been operating a half price sale).
My interest in peaked caps rekindled, I began to keep a watch of eBay... and I eventually struck gold.
These two caps were purchased last year for the excellent price of £30.99 (all prices noted in this post don't include the postage and packaging). I figured £15 was a pretty reasonable price and I would've been willing to pay more for them, but what was great about the auction was they were in the same one... so whilst I'd gone in looking for just one cap, I wound up getting two which was great... and if I recall correctly, I don't believe I encountered any other competition for what would have seemed to have been a pretty lucrative looking auction.
Gaining the caps was a large first step toward the creation of the costume. It hadn't even been my original intent to replicate the uniform but I became inspired.
The cap with gold accents which I attribute to being a Captain's cap was from B. Schlesinger & Sons of 830 Broadway, Manhattan and despite being made to fit a person with a 77/8 head, had been resized (rather badly) to fit a person with something closer to a 71/4. Despite this though, it was still a great acquisition.
The Patrolman's cap which had been my primary interest was sized for a 71/4 head and fit like a glove. Sadly it was missing it's tailor logo so it's damn near impossible to work out who made it. Whilst this isn't much of a concern, it would still be something nice to know.
The Patrolman's cap originally came with a cap badge number of #11439 which has since been swapped out for a replica cap badge to match a chest badge I've purchased.
The next item I purchased was the sheild/merit badge organiser which hold's the officer's badge, name plate and any awards the officer had received. I bought it from a retailer who sold a number of items of the uniform and who I would later return to for the award badges. I settled on a badge organiser with three slots so that it would display a few badges but not seem to over the top... especially as at the time the award badges I'd seen seemed a bit expensive. The organiser is made of leather and this particular one was about 5 inchles long and 21/4 inches wide. This item was bought in January for the tune of £3.02
The next item I wound up purchasing was the uniform shirt. Whilst the current dark blue shirt looks alright on the current version of the NYPD uniform, I preferred the lighter blue shirt that had become associated with the uniform through the 1980s and the early 1990s and decided that this would be the colour I'd go for, in addition the decision to use a older uniform design led to me to not use any badges on the organiser that were issued-post Millennium... which amongst others included a couple issued following September 11th, with the possible exception of the American Flag badge as it didn't have anything that specifically dated it. However had I not decided to limit the badges I could get... it just wouldn't have felt right to have bought a 9/11 one. In March I picked up a shirt, but didn't end up using it because it would up being too big... however it did put me in contact with a fellow cop uniform enthusiast who has spent time putting together a replica LAPD uniform. By the time I'd be compiling this I would have would up winning three different auctions for a uniform shirt, the only reason it got this high was because one seller took over three months to send the shirt out and having believed I'd never see it, decided to bite the loss and go for another auction.
Following the purchase of the first uniform shirt, I decided to take a look into collar brass. I didn't have any specific precinct in mind when I began to search so it was mostly a case if I found anything that was within my price range then I'd probably pick it up. The search results that came up only had one number, '55'. Now for those not in the know, '55' is the number associated with the Police Precinct in the TV series Third Watch which I am a fan of, and combined with the fact the collar brass also came with a FDNY, NYPD and a 9/11 FDNY patch I figured this was probably as good a deal I was going to get. As it happened the set was somewhat expensive, clocking in around £17.04 although in retrospect the patches probably helped justify the cost, however due to not being sure whether the patrolman collar brass was white or gold despite taking a look at real NYPD uniforms, I decided to order a second set as one of the extra benefits would be I'd have a pair of NYPD and a pair of FDNY patches.
The patches themselves are about 33/4 inches wide and just shy of 41/2 inches long. I have no idea how these compare to the ones used on the real uniforms, but as they're officially licenced I assume they're close, and even if they're not quite the right size, the get the job done nicely.
The next element of the uniform that was procured were the merit badges. Originally I'd contemplated getting them from the same person who I'd gotten the badge organiser from, but in addition to the postage felt the original price seemed a lot for a rectangle of metal with enamel. However, mid way through April the seller was having a sale which had the starting prices for the badges be £0.54 each, which I couldn't ignore. After checking a guide which listed all of the various merit badges that could be awareded, I settled on the following for my organiser:
Flag Bar = Commemorative Award
Green-White-Yellow = Excellent Duty Award
Pistol Expert = Self Explanatory
The '11' on the Excellent Duty Award is for the number of times it's awarded, the seller noted that any numbers would be random, presumably based on the ones he was able to ascquire. If I could've specified, I would've had it be the lowest number possible. The EDA and Pistol Expert badges were both £0.54 by the end of the auction, whilst the Flag badge was £.68.
Placing the badges into the badge organiser wasn't particularly easy though, the the Flag badge's pin setup around the 'other way' when compared to the other two, and even those that were set up around the same way had the guard to hold the pin in place arranged in different positions... and because the holes on the badge organiser were slightly too small for the badges I had to not only force the badges into the organiser (as well as strugle to close the pins once they'd been fed through) but I also had to force a pair of scissors through some of the holes to make them a little bit bigger. Making sure I had the badges in the correct order was paramount because once mounted, I wasn't sure if I'd be able to remove them again. For added security I taped the back of them down with duct tape. For those not familiar with law enforcement style shirts, they way they work is that the shirt itself will have two stitched areas for where the badge's pin will go, as well as a strip of material on the inside of the shirt that would add extra support for the heavy badge... the problem is is being able to feed the badge pin through the stitched area, and the strip of material and then out again for the end of the pin to then feed back through the shirt again and make sure the inner strip isn't too tight... it took several goes to succeed with this, partly because of the inconvenience of the badge organiser.
By now the uniform was slowly coming together, at some point after buying the badges I picked up a Viper equipment belt from a army surplus stall that operates in the nearby town on market days for £20. The belt is inaccurate but I bought it for a number of reasons, including being able to use it for other costumes in addition to the NYPD one.
The following day an auction for an auction for a replica Patrolman's chest badge was ending, which was being offered by a seller at a discounted price to the ones he was selling on his site. The seller was based in Germany and as the Pound wasn't doing that well against the Euro I had originally ruled out purchasing a chest badge from him... but with the auction being cheaper, I decided to go for it. Unfortunately I lost the auction, but got a second chance offer and took it. In addition to the chest badge I also ordered a cap badge with a custom number (to match the number of the badge I'd just bought) and a nameplate. I had planned to order a custom hat badge from the seller to match whatever chest badge I would eventually get off of eBay. Eventually the three items arrived, a chest badge and a cap badge bearing the number #12457 and a silver 1990s era nameplate bearing my name and the uniform made a major step forward towards completion. The badge organiser was now complete and filled out, and I was able to swap the badge that came with my Patrolman's cap with the replica so that the two uniform badges would match. The chest badge cost £34.71, the cap badge cost £33.14 and the name plate cost £9.87, comprising the single most expensive combined item for the whole costume.
The last remaining item I needed to get a hold of was the shirt. After the first one turned out to be too big, and the second one I ordered vanished into the aether for three months (finally arriving after I'd made the most recent shirt purchase), I decided to purchase a pair of blue police-style shirts that were being offered with a Buy It Now of around £21.11, this was back in August. The shirts arrived and happy to see I'd been able to work out the needlessly complicated shirt sizing convention and had ones that fit me properly. With the shirts acquired, I set about transferring the badge organiser which was a lot easier to pin to this shirt than the first one and adding the collar brass to the collar.
The grand total cost to assemble this costume is presently somewhere in the region of £188.68, it was expensive... but I feel worth it in the end.
As things presently stand, the patches still need to be sewn on and a pair of shoes chosen that fit the role. The intent is to also get a haircut so I look more presentable when I wear this costume to my University's Student Union Halloween Party. I will update this project post once I have gotten those items sorted. Until then, I hope you've enjoyed this topic.
It is my intent, in time to bring future updates concerning my Ghostbusters uniform to this topic under the idea of making a 'Blog like' topic which Jose suggested.
However for now, I'll start this topic with a different project for two reasons, firstly because whilst there have been some updates concerning the jumpsuit, this one is closer to completion. The second reason is that this isn't related to Ghostbusters. Here is a small teaser of what I'm planning to wear this Halloween:
Kingpin's NYPD uniform
This project reached it's first major step thanks to a lucky win on eBay. For quite some time I'd wanted to own a New York Police Department Patrolman's cap, being the New York obsessive I am. There was something aesthetically pleasing about the design of the Patrolman's cap as well as stylish, and my interest was rekindled after I'd chanced across a British Army peaked cap that had belonged to a member of the Royal Electrical & Mechanical Engineers for the bargain price of £5 from a charity shop (although I would've gladly paid the original price of £10 had they not been operating a half price sale).
My interest in peaked caps rekindled, I began to keep a watch of eBay... and I eventually struck gold.
These two caps were purchased last year for the excellent price of £30.99 (all prices noted in this post don't include the postage and packaging). I figured £15 was a pretty reasonable price and I would've been willing to pay more for them, but what was great about the auction was they were in the same one... so whilst I'd gone in looking for just one cap, I wound up getting two which was great... and if I recall correctly, I don't believe I encountered any other competition for what would have seemed to have been a pretty lucrative looking auction.
Gaining the caps was a large first step toward the creation of the costume. It hadn't even been my original intent to replicate the uniform but I became inspired.
The cap with gold accents which I attribute to being a Captain's cap was from B. Schlesinger & Sons of 830 Broadway, Manhattan and despite being made to fit a person with a 77/8 head, had been resized (rather badly) to fit a person with something closer to a 71/4. Despite this though, it was still a great acquisition.
The Patrolman's cap which had been my primary interest was sized for a 71/4 head and fit like a glove. Sadly it was missing it's tailor logo so it's damn near impossible to work out who made it. Whilst this isn't much of a concern, it would still be something nice to know.
The Patrolman's cap originally came with a cap badge number of #11439 which has since been swapped out for a replica cap badge to match a chest badge I've purchased.
The next item I purchased was the sheild/merit badge organiser which hold's the officer's badge, name plate and any awards the officer had received. I bought it from a retailer who sold a number of items of the uniform and who I would later return to for the award badges. I settled on a badge organiser with three slots so that it would display a few badges but not seem to over the top... especially as at the time the award badges I'd seen seemed a bit expensive. The organiser is made of leather and this particular one was about 5 inchles long and 21/4 inches wide. This item was bought in January for the tune of £3.02
The next item I wound up purchasing was the uniform shirt. Whilst the current dark blue shirt looks alright on the current version of the NYPD uniform, I preferred the lighter blue shirt that had become associated with the uniform through the 1980s and the early 1990s and decided that this would be the colour I'd go for, in addition the decision to use a older uniform design led to me to not use any badges on the organiser that were issued-post Millennium... which amongst others included a couple issued following September 11th, with the possible exception of the American Flag badge as it didn't have anything that specifically dated it. However had I not decided to limit the badges I could get... it just wouldn't have felt right to have bought a 9/11 one. In March I picked up a shirt, but didn't end up using it because it would up being too big... however it did put me in contact with a fellow cop uniform enthusiast who has spent time putting together a replica LAPD uniform. By the time I'd be compiling this I would have would up winning three different auctions for a uniform shirt, the only reason it got this high was because one seller took over three months to send the shirt out and having believed I'd never see it, decided to bite the loss and go for another auction.
Following the purchase of the first uniform shirt, I decided to take a look into collar brass. I didn't have any specific precinct in mind when I began to search so it was mostly a case if I found anything that was within my price range then I'd probably pick it up. The search results that came up only had one number, '55'. Now for those not in the know, '55' is the number associated with the Police Precinct in the TV series Third Watch which I am a fan of, and combined with the fact the collar brass also came with a FDNY, NYPD and a 9/11 FDNY patch I figured this was probably as good a deal I was going to get. As it happened the set was somewhat expensive, clocking in around £17.04 although in retrospect the patches probably helped justify the cost, however due to not being sure whether the patrolman collar brass was white or gold despite taking a look at real NYPD uniforms, I decided to order a second set as one of the extra benefits would be I'd have a pair of NYPD and a pair of FDNY patches.
The patches themselves are about 33/4 inches wide and just shy of 41/2 inches long. I have no idea how these compare to the ones used on the real uniforms, but as they're officially licenced I assume they're close, and even if they're not quite the right size, the get the job done nicely.
The next element of the uniform that was procured were the merit badges. Originally I'd contemplated getting them from the same person who I'd gotten the badge organiser from, but in addition to the postage felt the original price seemed a lot for a rectangle of metal with enamel. However, mid way through April the seller was having a sale which had the starting prices for the badges be £0.54 each, which I couldn't ignore. After checking a guide which listed all of the various merit badges that could be awareded, I settled on the following for my organiser:
Flag Bar = Commemorative Award
Green-White-Yellow = Excellent Duty Award
Pistol Expert = Self Explanatory
The '11' on the Excellent Duty Award is for the number of times it's awarded, the seller noted that any numbers would be random, presumably based on the ones he was able to ascquire. If I could've specified, I would've had it be the lowest number possible. The EDA and Pistol Expert badges were both £0.54 by the end of the auction, whilst the Flag badge was £.68.
Placing the badges into the badge organiser wasn't particularly easy though, the the Flag badge's pin setup around the 'other way' when compared to the other two, and even those that were set up around the same way had the guard to hold the pin in place arranged in different positions... and because the holes on the badge organiser were slightly too small for the badges I had to not only force the badges into the organiser (as well as strugle to close the pins once they'd been fed through) but I also had to force a pair of scissors through some of the holes to make them a little bit bigger. Making sure I had the badges in the correct order was paramount because once mounted, I wasn't sure if I'd be able to remove them again. For added security I taped the back of them down with duct tape. For those not familiar with law enforcement style shirts, they way they work is that the shirt itself will have two stitched areas for where the badge's pin will go, as well as a strip of material on the inside of the shirt that would add extra support for the heavy badge... the problem is is being able to feed the badge pin through the stitched area, and the strip of material and then out again for the end of the pin to then feed back through the shirt again and make sure the inner strip isn't too tight... it took several goes to succeed with this, partly because of the inconvenience of the badge organiser.
By now the uniform was slowly coming together, at some point after buying the badges I picked up a Viper equipment belt from a army surplus stall that operates in the nearby town on market days for £20. The belt is inaccurate but I bought it for a number of reasons, including being able to use it for other costumes in addition to the NYPD one.
The following day an auction for an auction for a replica Patrolman's chest badge was ending, which was being offered by a seller at a discounted price to the ones he was selling on his site. The seller was based in Germany and as the Pound wasn't doing that well against the Euro I had originally ruled out purchasing a chest badge from him... but with the auction being cheaper, I decided to go for it. Unfortunately I lost the auction, but got a second chance offer and took it. In addition to the chest badge I also ordered a cap badge with a custom number (to match the number of the badge I'd just bought) and a nameplate. I had planned to order a custom hat badge from the seller to match whatever chest badge I would eventually get off of eBay. Eventually the three items arrived, a chest badge and a cap badge bearing the number #12457 and a silver 1990s era nameplate bearing my name and the uniform made a major step forward towards completion. The badge organiser was now complete and filled out, and I was able to swap the badge that came with my Patrolman's cap with the replica so that the two uniform badges would match. The chest badge cost £34.71, the cap badge cost £33.14 and the name plate cost £9.87, comprising the single most expensive combined item for the whole costume.
The last remaining item I needed to get a hold of was the shirt. After the first one turned out to be too big, and the second one I ordered vanished into the aether for three months (finally arriving after I'd made the most recent shirt purchase), I decided to purchase a pair of blue police-style shirts that were being offered with a Buy It Now of around £21.11, this was back in August. The shirts arrived and happy to see I'd been able to work out the needlessly complicated shirt sizing convention and had ones that fit me properly. With the shirts acquired, I set about transferring the badge organiser which was a lot easier to pin to this shirt than the first one and adding the collar brass to the collar.
The grand total cost to assemble this costume is presently somewhere in the region of £188.68, it was expensive... but I feel worth it in the end.
As things presently stand, the patches still need to be sewn on and a pair of shoes chosen that fit the role. The intent is to also get a haircut so I look more presentable when I wear this costume to my University's Student Union Halloween Party. I will update this project post once I have gotten those items sorted. Until then, I hope you've enjoyed this topic.
kris king liked this