Ravensmoon Replicas in the news

USU Statesman, Friday, October 20, 2000

Local company offers quirky costumes,
from Middle Ages to the future of Jedis

Perhaps in the last few weeks you've seen a large, burly man with brown curly hair and a goatee walking around campus, dressed as a Jedi Knight.

You may have asked yourself, "Who is this guy? Why is he wearing that robe? Has George Lucas, in a state of Red Bull delirium, picked the Utah State University campus as a shooting locale for Star Wars: Episode Two?"

Good news: It's not George Lucas, and he doesn't want you in Episode Two.

It is Timothy Buck, a Star Wars fan, art major and Web entrepreneur.

With his wife, Tara, as his partner—and the assistance of some local artisans—Buck owns and operates Ravensmoon Replicas (www.ravensmoon.com), an Internet-based business that specializes in "handmade replicas of medieval and early Renaissance items."

If you need some chainmail—be it a sash, coif or shirt, various robes and cloaks, a peasant's shirt, a tabard, some armor or numerous other types of clothing for women and men—Ravensmoon has it. Think J.R.R. Tolkien meets e-commerce.

Inside their online catalogue you can find many weapons as well. This might interest anyone looking to pulverize trick-or-treaters on Halloween.

They have a mallet that looks like something out of Braveheart, an executioner's axe that looks primed to take some heads off and a war club (a 3-foot-long, solid-oak staff with a leather handle and brass studs for impact) that makes the aforementioned weapons seem like Tinkertoys. They even have handmade lightsabers for the Ravensmoon Jedi and Sith ensembles.

The quality is high because Buck and his staff make everything by hand (with specific attention to detail), and they keep their products at a reasonable cost.

Describing how he became interested in "live-action roleplay," Buck said he decided, after a few months, he would get himself a costume to authenticate the medieval role-playing experience, but he was shocked at the cost of replicas on the Internet.

"I was appalled at the extremely high prices for costumes," Buck said. "It seemed fundamentally wrong to charge people hundreds of dollars for relatively simple items, just because you could."

So Buck said he set out to do something about it.

"I have skills in quite a few fields; I had learned to make chainmail and sew some time before, besides the ceramics and metalwork," he said. "I thought to myself, 'Well, why don't I do this?' So I did."

Since 1995, Buck has been going to school and operating Ravensmoon Replicas. He sells items across the country from the company's Web site, and he has sent items to such far-away places as Bahrain, an island in the middle of the Persian Gulf.

However, despite selling goods to Cache Valley residents at fairs, Ravensmoon Replicas has never received a Web order from a Cache Valley resident.

Buck said most business starts in the summer and ends sometime after Christmas.

Halloween is the biggest boom of the year, with Christmas a close second.

Ravensmoon Replicas becomes so busy during those times that limits are set as to when Halloween and Christmas orders can no longer be guaranteed. This year it was Sept. 1 and Nov. 4. Buck said sales are usually 50 percent medieval and 50 percent Star Wars related.

It doesn't take a Jedi mind trick to convince Buck he's doing what he loves.

"Making stuff for the [Web] site is really my hobby," he said. "I really enjoy doing it. It works out nicely, since I am able to work my hobby into my business."