Shining/Polished/New vs Worn/Weathered/Used Armour

[Matthew Amt]

Glad you like my armor, Yuri! Strictly speaking, though, all my little pugio dents are NOT accurate, since armor really would not have been hit by points like that very often.

Perhaps it is just a teenage thing, but most of my friends and some acquaintances say that for some reason hollywood 'looks' more realistic. When I went on to ask why, they practically unanimously agreed it was because of the 'worn out' look. I still prefer the shiny/polished look to hollywood, but all I am saying is that the public seem to have an easier time with the weathered looks.

That's because Hollywood only shows armor as black or gray or brown! And most people only see armor in films and TV, so that's what they expect. Hollywood seems to have the policy of "The public is ignorant so we have to keep lying to them." (Mind you, at the same time they feel that everything has to shock the audience, though it never occurs to them to shock people with historical accuracy...)

Hmm, I guess you could partly blame museums, too, since the original bits on display are all corroded or green from thousands of years in the dirt, and too few places show a nice shiny replica in the same case. So a lot of general public, and presumably most movie makers, see the rust and patina and don't think any farther than "armor is brown".

My point is an old/repaired/seasoned and clean, polished and shiny-but-not-as-shiny lorica will look different to a straight from the Fabrica one.

Do we know that? Cleaning armor (especially brass) takes only a damp rag and some dust or ashes. My armor has had the same basic finish for 16 years. Modern Indian-made repros tend to be on the glossy side, but it's entirely possible that a brand new lorica in Roman times was LESS shiny than one that had been owned and scrubbed for a few months. Why should the armorers take the time to put a perfect finish on a lorica plate that is simply going to be cleaned to death for years? A fresh piece of mail is black from annealing, but use and wear it and eventually you see mostly bare metal. (Want to clean a piece of rusty mail? Hand it around a school full of kids! Comes back all shiny, and all you have to do is add a little oil.) There are surviving helmets that still show hammer marks--I'll bet they didn't get issued as glossy as a Deepeeka brass helmet! And yet very few surviving helmets that I know of show a lot of little dents and dings from being mishandled, though I suppose a lot of that could have been erased by corrosion or restoration.

Also, wouldn't a veteran of 10 or 15 years be better at keeping his armor clean than a raw recruit? He'd know all the tricks by then. Two or three weeks on campaign, and the recruit would learn most of those tricks as well! I'm still not seeing any reason for the armor and helmets of soldiers on a long campaign to be visibly degraded compared to those in garrison. Shields could certainly take some abuse in battle, blood and mud along with weapons, but the blood and mud will mostly wash off. Paint may fade a little in the sunlight, though that's what your shield cover will prevent. Tunics will get dirty, but how much of your tunic is visibly in battle formation?

Sure Matt, post the picture of my unfinished scutum without the boss on it!

Ha! If you hadn't mentioned it, most folks wouldn't have seen it! Which helps prove my point. "Get a boss, get a haircut!"

Valete,

Matthew