PoD

I've seen one of those in an auction that had a flintlock mechanism on either side. I remember thinking at the time that would have been a pirates dream weapon. Out of period though but still very cool http://www.christies.com/LotFinder/lot_det...bjectID=5211694

I made a copy of that french belt a few months back.

Cool I will have to check that place out. Leeds armouries is very similar by the looks of it. I forgot my camera when i went there but next time I'll probably get thrown out for photographing everything ha ha.

OK i'll let you know. I am going for a research trip down to the national archives in London so i can try to get the Queen Anne LoM as accurate as I can.

I think they put the ornate plate in them to hide away all the locking mechanisms from the eye and maybe to stop the contents of the chest getting caught up in the mechanisms

cool i'll have to get some hemp paper in stock. Just message me when you want them. On a side note to the vellum discussion I have found somewhere that does fake calf vellum with the grain effect in it so i'll be printing the normal replicas on these now or Hemp paper on request. http://www.craftycomputerpaper.co.uk/produ...m-paper_091.htm I am definately interested in doing some actual vellum replicas now as I think i may have persuaded my wife to do the calligraphy. Going to take Foxe's advice and head off down to the NAtional Archives to see some real examples. Argghh what good is a family if you cant exploit them

wow thats amazing.

I was just about to ask if anyone knew where there was an actual example of a letter of marque. It's the size more than anything i need as I know they were way bigger than letter size so if they did actually come in a wallet they would have been folded quite a bit. As for the printing, that was another thing i was looking at. If I get the chance I could mill out the letters and try printing it on a press rather than a computer. Not sure i'd have the skills or the patience to hand write one. From what I can tell you cant print on calf skin vellum in a traditional computer printer anyway. You'd probably have to use dye sublimation or similar. I was just checking the prices and realised the US one was per square foot.

really interesting post and the pictures are really helpfull as I have just spent the last week making jacobite sporrans and belt pouches for a client that does Jacobite reenactment. Also made a highland womans belt to hold up one of them "belted plaids".

Thats actually what I have been thinking of doing for my next project. I have found a Queen Anne cypher that I am going to have made up into a wax seal stamp. The majority of the text was from a Queen Anne letter of marque anyway so it shouldnt be to hard to convert. The hard bit will be getting the vellum cheap enough. The UK supplier above seems to be charging a hell of a lot compared to the U.S. supplier. I might just buy it and have it shipped over from there.

My ship would be called "Jasmine's Wrath" after my daughter

Ok found some suppliers it looks like; Is this the right stuff they are selling: http://apps.webcreate.com/ecom/catalog/pro...egoryFullID=204 http://www.hewit.com/acatalog/Vellum.html

I'm just checking it out now. Haven't come across anyone selling it yet but there is a guide to making it here: http://www.geocities.com/housesingingstone...s/vhandout.html

Yep just another of them materials lost in the mists of time. Although I am quite suprised that no one at all makes it in this day and age.

ahhh looks like its modern vellum i have been getting hold of then rather than the 17th century version. Still it looks as near as damn it so it'll do for now. Although I have just found this link that tells you how to make imitation vellum so might have a go at that: http://www.edenworkshops.com/Imitation%20V...ent%20Paper.pdf

You can get vellum easier than hemp paper??? Yeah loads of places sell vellum around me. It's used in card making now so its quite easy to get.

This one is a little bit dirty rather than aged:

ha ha I have already changed the auction on ebay to offer an as new version as well as an aged version. I did a bit o' research and the letters of marque were printed on vellum so i can print them as new easily (good job too as Hemp paper isnt easy to find in the UK)

Would you share the results of the sales of "new" documents, if you don't mind? I am all curious to see how it affects your sales now. Ok I am just going to change the ebay listing and see what happens.

Ha ha my wife wont let me play with fire no more

I just took the ageing off and printed it on plain vellum and it looks good like that too. I think thats a good idea to sell new looking ones as well as aged ones depending on who wants them.

This is on mine: With this on my second monitor (I'm a graphic designer so one desktop just don't cut it lol):

Yeah I have been thinking of doing a "cleaner" version of it. I was wondering what kind of stains it would get vrom say getting wet in a pocket or being exposed to gunsmoke. I would assume it would just be worn around the edges and on the parts where water would leak into the wallet. It's easy enough to do a new looking version as the paper ageing is just a scanned image so i'd just leave that off.

I have cut all the leather out but just need to sew it all together now. Hopefully i will get some time to work on it in the next week or so.

wow and I thought dentists in this day and age are scarey.