If you read my steps for how to make your own reproductions, you might think that it’s pretty easy to make a good looking reproduction.  And, for things like forms, tags, and cards, it IS pretty easy.

In order to get an accurate product, I often need to purchase the item itself.  For something as simple as WWII US Army issue chapstick, the price tag was $150 for the original, and our original t-shirts can be double or triple that.  Sometimes, I’ll get lucky and find something for $10 or $20, but of course, no one wants those items repro’ed, because – well – for $10, you can buy an original.

Then, on average, a cardboard box like the ones we use for our friction tape, caddie cloth, etc., takes about 1-2 work days to hand draw, using a lot of the original techniques that were used when the box was drawn the first time around.   In some cases, we need to create a pattern first, using plain craft paper or scrap cardboard.

Luckily for me, I have a computer, and don’t have to hand make printing plates like they did to make the original boxes, but  even still, a lot of time goes into laying out the box and redrawing the artwork.  We don’t use the scan and print method. In fact, sometimes I don’t push the print button at all.  My “press ready” artwork is then sent out to a local printing press, which, in 4-6 weeks, will send me back between 100 and 1000 of the item that I just created.   Can I order just 10?  Sure, but the cost can end up being upwards of $20 an item, in the case of something as simple as a writing tablet.

In the case of many of our products, like our friction tape and cellulose tape, we also hunt down the stuff that goes inside the box.  To me, that’s almost more important to me than having an empty box.

In addition, I take a great deal of pride in hunting down the best looking reproduction within my means.  In the case of our t-shirts, I went through approximately 20 different shirt blanks over the course of the last several years to find the one that’s closest to my originals.

I admit that I don’t always get it right the first time around – I still laugh at some of my very first repros that I made for myself.  When I first started reenacting, I was completely frustrated because my printed at home paper boxes fell apart in my footlocker.  That meant experimenting with glues, papers, inks, etc.  Now, every time I make a new batch of a product, I’m always refining things to make them more accurate.  By being more accurate, I mean cleaning up a graphic that’s not just right, or editing the box construction.  It might mean buying a better quality fabric, or finding a better supplier or having yarn custom dyed.