Costuming/Armor Question

A

Alex319

Artisan
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I have a tactical vest that looks similar to the picture above that I want to use to carry my in-game items. With all the pouches it will be great for keeping track of all the potions, scrolls, coin, light sources, etc. I want to know what I can do to make this look more in-genre and hopefully also make it count as armor. I was thinking of getting lots of pennies and gluing them to all the surfaces of the vest, so as to make it look something like this:

pennymail-main.jpg

except with the pennies attached to the vest rather than attached to each other. Would this count as in-genre enough to be allowed, and how many points would it be worth? (I would imagine since it would be metal that would mean at least 2 points per location).
 
I suspect it is possible to make a piece of clothing that functions as a tactical vest and looks vaguely in-genre, but probably not starting from a modern tactical vest. Even if you cover it up, the shape and color of a modern tactical vest are too distinct and would be very, very difficult to disguise.
 
Also as an aside, be careful about using pennies. Gluing them or drilling holes in them is technically defacement of currency and a Federal crime. You would be better off using fake metal coins or metal disks than real coinage for any armoring projects.
 
I suggest defacing other countries coinage, not ours...

Go 'merica!
 
While the fraudulent defacement of ANY legal currency (including foreign currency) is a crime, this criminal act requires Mens Rea towards fraud. They also require that you circulate the coins as currency rather than an armor prop.

Whoever fraudulently alters, defaces, mutilates, impairs, diminishes, falsifies, scales, or lightens any of the coins coined at the mints of the United States, or any foreign coins which are by law made current or are in actual use or circulation as money within the United States; or Whoever fraudulently possesses, passes, utters, publishes, or sells, or attempts to pass, utter, publish, or sell, or brings into the United States, any such coin, knowing the same to be altered, defaced, mutilated, impaired, diminished, falsified, scaled, or lightened - Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both. U.S. code Title 18, Chapter 17, Section 331

To put a finer point on it. This question was raised by the "penny pressing" novelty industry. They wrote to the US Mint to request clarification on their business model and were told that defacing pennies for the purpose of creating "extramonetary" pennies no fraudulent intent existed so they were not violating this law. Response from the government's Counsel to the Mint to follow:

"This is in reply to your letter of Jun 20, 1980, concerning United States statutes governing the destruction, melting, or other extramonetary uses of United States coins. You refer to and question the legality of a souvenir machine which compresses coins and returns a souvenir. You refer to Title 18, U. S. C. sections 331 and 475.

As you are already aware, a federal statute in the criminal code of the United States (18 U.S.C. 331), indeed makes it illegal if one "fraudulently alters, defaces, mutilates, impairs, diminishes, falsifies, scales or lightens" any U.S. coin. However, being a criminal statute, a fraudulent intent is required for violation. Thus, the mere act of compressing coins into souvenirs is not illegal, without other factors being present.

Section 475, which you refer to in your letter, regarding the attachment of notice or advertisement to legal tender, does not apply to your souvenirs in this case. Your are not impressing or attaching a business or professional card, notice or advertisement to a coin, your are simply making an impression on the coin.

We hope this information answers your question. If we can be of any further assistance, please contact us.

Sincerely,

Kenneth B. Gubin
Counsel to the Mint.
 
Thanks for the clarification and in depth answer John=)
 
And "licensed attorney," but probably to most readers here, they mean about the same thing :)

Trace
 
I personally approve of referencing IRS and other government entity rulings when it comes to my LARP costuming construction, thanks other John!
 
You could always try to dye it brown (like leather). Or even affix small leather squares on the flat surfaces with copper hand rivets. You can buy a bag of leather scraps at Hobby Lobby for pretty cheap; the leather is flexible and thin making riveting very easy.
 
Its nylon. Nylon does not take dye because it is a polymer plastic base. Nothing about this garment is suitable for modification into something medeival-ish/convincing because of its inherent design. Like David said, something made from more convincing materials, fabric, leather, canvas, that works like a tac vest is totally doable, but there comes a point when modification of an existing item just isnt going to do the job. Post apocalytic- hells yes. BUt this is a medeival game.. and tac vests are basically one of the most modern and obvious representations of light military, police, civilian armor/gear, useing all the most modern materials and hardwar... its a non starter. Build from scratch.
 
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B.Barber said:
Its nylon. Nylon does not take dye because it is a polymer plastic base. Nothing about this garment is suitable for modification into something medeival-ish/convincing because of its inherent design. Like David said, something made from more convincing materials, fabric, leather, canvas, that works like a tac vest is totally doable, but there comes a point when modification of an existing item just isnt going to do the job. Post apocalytic- hells yes. BUt this is a medeival game.. and tac vests are basically one of the most modern and obvious representations of light military, police, civilian armor/gear, useing all the most modern materials and hardwar... its a non starter. Build from scratch.
Click to expand...

I think you can dye nylon materials with an acid based dye. I forget what's it called though.

Oops, just found it. Its called Jacquard dye. They claim it can be used on nylon and other synthetic materials.
 
This is not that kind of Nylon. Nylon fabric can be dyed with acid and reactive dyes, but this is Nylon plastic mesh and whatever that strappy stuff is called. Its basically woven plastic.

And that does not change the rest of the issues with it- the color is not really the problem. THeres inherent construction, material-texture and hardware issue that just wont look convincing, or even good, in the end.
 
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The thing that strikes me generally with modifying stuff is that you have to be cautious in picking your base item -- it's easy to say "I'll take this and modify it" and end up with doing a lot more work to get a much worse result than starting from, in this case, no vest in the first place. Looking at that vest, for instance, there aren't many flat spots on it, and affixing leather objects to those flat spots is still going to leave a lot of very overtly non-genre material visible. The look is "modern item found and repurposed", not "thing that looks like it could be not a modern item". Covering everything with leather would be a deeply obnoxious task, would probably impede the function of the vest, and would still leave things like all the velcro stuff and the quick-release buckles (which is rather more than I'd consider sufficiently discreet to come off well). If you're replacing those with other closures at that point you're kind of making a sketchy lumpy mess of a leather vest on top of an out of genre nylon vest of a design centered around the operation of modern firearms, which raises the question of why the nylon vest is involved at all.

Seriously, it's a cool idea for like DR or something that calls pretty much precisely for stuff that looks like repurposed tactical castoffs. But otherwise, I'd think more like starting from a pattern or taking something like an unadorned canvas vest for a base and making pockets to attach to it.
 
Not sure if you're interested in buying something, but I saw this for about $50.
 

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