These faces look stunningly familiar don’t they? It seems crazy to us that a couple of antique firefighter masks, that pre-date the first Star Wars movie by almost 100 years, could bare such a striking resemblance to Darth Vader and C3PO, but that’s exactly what your're looking at.
According to a recent post on Collectors Weekly, these masks from a steampunk dream date back somewhere between the 1800s and World War I, way before George Lucas had any plans for the two Star Wars characters. And, the collector world is saying there is no doubt the masks influenced the Star Wars design team.
The black leather Vader head gear comes from Hamburg, Germany and is said to be labeled Respirations Apparat by G.B.Konic Altona. That’s pretty crazy considering Darth Vader’s helmet was part of a respiration system! The C3PO looking one is made of brass and comes from France where it was manufactured by J. Manet. It was a firefighter mask that fresh air was forced into from the outside of a burning building. A bellow system was used to push the air through up to 13 meters of tubing. Read More...