ELC Rough Wear 1401P Collar Replacement

[herk115]

I own a really bitchin' ELC RW 1401P, and it's absolutely perfect except for one thing: the idiotic clown collar that came on the 1401P. I've done the HW treatment, run over it a few times with my truck, etc. (just kidding), and though I've managed to flatten it enough to be acceptable, it still makes for a rather ugly jacket, at least to my eye.

So, question: since I bought it on Ebay for probably less than half what HPA would charge me new, I can afford to put some money into it. Do you guys know if it's feasible to remove the collar stand and existing collar from a jacket and have a more attractive (to me) collar put on? Is this possible or is there some show-stopper in the design of the jacket that would make this uglier than what I've got now? And if I do decide to do this, should I have ELC do it, or is it something that can be handled by a local tailor? Should I order the collar of my liking from ELC, have them ship it to me, then have a local tailor put it on, or would I be better off just shipping the jacket to ELC and having them fix it? I've got to balance cost vs. improvement here. Interested in your opinions. Thanks in advance.

Cheers.

 

[Silver Surfer]

i have one of the "intermediary" elc 1401s. i call it intermediary because it was made after the talon smooth skin 1401s, but before the "war horse"1401s. my jac was one of the first fitted with the repro crowns, and the hides have graining similar to an original. imho: the war horse version is way to consistently grainy, and the hide color is way to dark. why mention the above? i also have some original rough wears, and i have compared the collars of the originals with my elc, and found that except for a slight diff of lobe angle, the elc is very accurate. many of the original 1401s had fairly large collars, like what some fellas like to call "clown collars". i know that there has been a lot of pooing about the elc 1401 collar, but if your jac is like mine, i would say leave it. finding a color match will be damn near impossible, as each batch of hide that any maker gets is different from the last, and next. whats more, finding a tailor to get it right, is a sort of holy grail. if ya feel it is to big or something you can shape it more to your liking. i wear the collars on all of my a-2s with the back up, with a slight fold into a crease, and the front lobes folded over from a 1/4"-1/2" rise. just a personal preference, ya know. point being, make it your shape, and dont worry about the size. thats what they say, anyhoo.

 

[MikeyB-17]

Bill Kelso did a storming job to a collar replacement back along, I recall.

 

[Dr H]

What not try another contract? If you mess with the collar and (assuming it works) it changes the look, then the resale value might suffer. I'm not that familiar with the 1401P, but are there no similar patterns with smaller collars?
The Perry has some similarities in terms of pocket flap shape, etc. with a much trimmer collar.

 

[Roughwear]

I too would not change the collar. RW collars on my originals vary quite a bit. Unless you can get a 100% match with the leather at a fair price leave it alone or sell it and upgrade to a GW.

 

[Silver Surfer]

dr h is correct, the perry is very similar to the rws, but with a smaller collar.

 

[Dr H]

...more luck than judgement!

 

[johnwayne]

I have total empathy with herk115 - my early 1401 (think its about 10/11 years old now) suffers the same and one reason I rarely wear it, the other being that it's well 'patched' which looks great but I always feel concious wearing it out and about!. The leather which is quite crisp too I've thought, doesn't help it
When I first acquired it I had a bit of an issue zipping up the Talon so when ELC annouced the Crown I got them to replace it and at the time I wrote an an accompanying note to Gary questioning the collar which I wondered might have been cut wrong - always thinking it was too deep particularly at the back. Didn't even get a response! Nor did I get my old Talon returned either!!

I have since seen other 1401's and even some original pics where collars do sit/look as mine or how they suffer the same, so put it down to 'thats just how it is'!!!

cheers
Wayne