Indiana Jeff wrote:My experience from emailing Tony was the “standard” CS jacket was $650. Immediately after his death the guy who took over TNO raises the price to $950.
Indiana Jeff
"The guy" was Riley, Tony's stepson. He ran the shop in a reduced capacity for roughly two years, though the last several months of operation, his communication with new and old customers tapered off. He finished any outstanding orders placed prior to Tony's passing and took on a handful of new jackets.
As for pricing, both of my Raiders (747 cow and shrunken lamb), in addition to my LC (dark CS cow) were $650 from Tony. When I dealt with Riley, my Surrogates (cow) was about $900 and my Tron Legacy (kangaroo) was $1100.
Han Jones - I still regret not purchasing your vintage goat LC when it went up for sale all those years ago
Well, to start with, I placed several orders with Tony over the years... great guy, one of a kind. We were in the middle of an order when he sadly passed, and I thought nothing more of it.
I was contacted by Riley not long after, who sent me the completed jacket.
I wore it for a week, and one of the snap buttons fell off it completely, so I asked Riley if it could be repaired. He said to send it right over.
I did, sending it via FedEx Express and followed the tracking, seeing that it was signed for by one of the workers... I thought they might be busy, so I waited a week or two to give Riley time to contact me, not wanting to rush them.
A couple weeks go by, and then...
Nothing.
I emailed Riley to ask if he recieved it, and never got a response. I wait another week and sent a follow up email. Still nothing. A month, one more email nothing. I call, and the phone just goes straight to voicemail..
Till this day, I have no idea what happened to my jacket. A year or two later Riley closed shop and had a liquidation sale, so I can only guess as to what happened to my jacket.
Not sure what that was all about. I was one of the more regular of Tony's customers, and Riley seemed very pleasant on the phone. Only spoke to him two times- once when he called me up to take payment and arrange delivery, and the next was when I asked if it could be repaired. I didn't ask for anything crazy, nor did I complain about anything, so I don't know why Riley chose to ignore me after getting my jacket.
And before you ask, there was nothing legally I could do since I was in another state, and technically, I recieved the jacket when it was made, so I couldn't contact Visa about reversing the initial charge.
I mean, what ***** the most to me was not even the amount it cost (don't forget, in addition to the jacket, I paid a good amount for return shipping), but the fact that it was the last jacket Tony had arranged for me. And the reason why the snap broke off even, was because I was treating as a tribute jacket to the man, and wearing the #### out of it.
So yeah, I'm bummed, and sincerely regret sending him that jacket. Probably my biggest gear regret right there in almost 2 decades of collecting... Lesson learned, I guess.
Castor,
You sent an expensive item in for repair and it was basically stolen. How you think you had no rights to get it back has me stumped. It's theft. Not something to be looked on lightly or just shrug your shoulders at and wonder forever what happened.
Just reading your post irked me. How people can just do that to hard working, paying customers is beyond me. All I can say is I wouldn't have stopped and would have exhausted every avenue to get fair justice.
Apparently, you have way more patience and are seemingly a better person than I.
Totally agree, but considering it happened over 10 years ago now, there isn’t much he can do about it now. Sadly 7 years is the deadline for reporting a theft.
I never understood what Riley Novak was doing back then either, but then we’ve witnessed several vendors do the same thing over the years that there wasn’t much anyone could do to get any kind of justice or satisfaction.
Of course. I would have been all over it soon after I realized I wasn't getting any response. That's just a lot of money to let go of, not to mention a killer jacket.
I missed the whole Tony Nowak era of jackets. I didn't get into or buy any gear until 2015. I was aware of Wested and their jackets since 1999 because I remember stumbling onto the website and it stuck in my mind, but I didn't buy or even look at IJ gear until 2015.
I only recently made the connection of TN and bodybuilding when I saw pumping Iron again recently. He's in that I realized I knew who he was long before he made any jackets for IJ.
agent5 wrote:Castor,
You sent an expensive item in for repair and it was basically stolen. How you think you had no rights to get it back has me stumped. It's theft. Not something to be looked on lightly or just shrug your shoulders at and wonder forever what happened.
Just reading your post irked me. How people can just do that to hard working, paying customers is beyond me. All I can say is I wouldn't have stopped and would have exhausted every avenue to get fair justice.
Apparently, you have way more patience and are seemingly a better person than I.
All fair points. Unfortunately, this happened a lifetime ago, and I was much, much younger and more foolish and naive than I am now. At the time, I didn't write to bother Roley as Nowak's death was still fresh for his family, and as it dragged on, I figured it would be a hopeless cause in a small claims court. Live and learn, I suppose.
If it happened today, the first thing I'd do would be to consult my lawyer.
Definitely soured me on gear related purchases since then. I've been almost exclusively making purchases with vendors and tailors that operate as a business first and foremost, and have not opened their doors because of interest from movie gearheads. Not foolproof, but at least I don't get treated like they're doing me a favor as a result, and certainly there's a lot less flakiness in general.
I wasn't thinking of Indy specifically, but just movie wardrobe gear in general. Especially at this stage of my life, I find more utility buying James Bond related gear than I do Indy, unfortunately.
Bur as for Indy, for example, I'd be happy to do business with Herbert Johnson (and have), but very hesitant to do business with a small hatmaker operation like Adventurebilt (at least after KotCS came out). I mean, I was mostly lucky with Steve, but many others weren't. For that matter, I had a similar situation with Steve where I had sent a fedora back for a reblock, but never got it back. The check for the reblock cost was cashed though... Like with my Nowak, I never got a reply. I ended up using an alias, and was able to buy a replacement fedora from him almost instantly.
Or think of the numerous negative experiences with Wested for every positive one.
Just my opinion and personal preference though. With companies that aren't dependent on gear reproductions, they actually care about their reputation and are more reliable and consistent. Otherwise, they know that you're more likely a one time customer anyway, and another dozen folks will be banging on their door to get a replica from them, especially if they're the original maker. Plenty of disincentive to establish any sort of a relationship with you as a customer.
Heck, even established companies sometimes fall prey to this trap too. Some clothing brands that were used in the last few James Bond movies, for example, do screen accurate runs through enquiry only, and many customers leave feeling shortchanged afterwards. Take a look at the stories on ajb007 if you're interested about that.
But I guess as far as Indy is concerned, there's HJ, there's Anto, Stetson arguably, so... not many. Ultimately, it just becomes a question of what are you willing to sacrifice? If you're patient and you have a plan if things go wrong, then I suppose you could make screen vendors work. If you're more cautious (like I've become), and if you're willing to give up screen/prop accuracy for consistency, then go with an established brand and be careful with special runs for the fans!
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