Mission

"People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character." –Ralph Waldo Emerson "People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them." - George Bernard Shaw "Life is either a daring adventure or it is nothing." -Helen Adams Keller "Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent." -Calvin Coolidge "There are no hopeless situations in life; there are only men who have grown hopeless about them." –Clare Booth Luce "And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music." -Friedrich Nietzsche

Friends and virtual neighbors, would you do me and everyone on the forum a favor? Would you please sort through your Internet Favorites Lists and put links to the vendors you love in here so we can share them with everyone? The more info we have in here, the more useful this thread will be. Also if you know of a page of links to vendors (like the NQG link in the first post), would you post that? Thanks!

You would probably really like Claire Phillips, Jill. She started a Japanese night club in occupied Manila and recruited a bunch of women to get the Japanese officers drunk and worm secrets out of them. She also used the money from her club to funnel supplies into the POW camps. She was one sharp, brave woman.

Manila Espionage by Claire Phillips. The history of the Philippines during World War II is fascinating...and rather sad. It was not our best moment.

Well, the banana, while not producing any fruit or even getting very large, seems to be doing just fine. (I actually like it sort of small - it fits in the decor well.) I think I'm going to attempt an avocado tree now. You can grow them from those giant seeds you find in the fruit. I found the instructions for growing them here.

Here are my apothecary tools. The last one is a pair of tweezers. I believe they are at least 50-100 years out of period, but they look pretty correct so they work for me. (Truth is, they're not very interesting to most people so I don't even talk about them. They're just window dressing.)

vintage sailor sent me an email with a question that I thought I would post for everyone (mainly because I cannot completely and succinctly answer it and someone else may have some valuable insight.) Tweezers would be too small to remove bullets - a surgeon would most likely have used forceps or his fingers for that job. However, he might have had tweezers for the same reason we have them today - to extract slivers of material. (In fact, splinters from cannon balls striking shipboard were far more likely to kill a sailor than the cannon ball itself.) Surgeons might also used them in an apothecary capacity - to measure out quantities of material for making medicines. I have something like this in my apothecary toolkit, although it is almost surely post-period. Unfortunately, I don't have a photo of it - I will get one and post it when I do. The ones I have are Scandanavian - made of black iron, forged and about 6" or 7" long. The top is bent in a circle like C below. The one photo I did find in my gathered material is from the wonderful, excellent, outstanding and obviously highly recommended The Evolution of Surgical Instruments; An Illustrated History from Ancient Time to the Twentieth Century by John Kirkup. This is scanned in from page 215: Notice how fancy these things are? It was not uncommon for items to have decorative flourishes like the ones shown in the photo. In fact, the earlier a surgical item is, the more decoration it is likely to have from what I've read. During the 17th century, manufacturers were moving away from the decorative touches as they sometimes got in the way of the surgery. However, personal items probably would have been more likely to have such touches if I understand it correctly. Some notes on all surgical instruments and tools - they did not plate metal at this point, so anything plated is post-period. They did not have stainless steel, so that's out as well. A surgeon might have had a pair made of steel, brass or silver. A common sea-surgeon probably would not spend the extra money for silver, however, as they were pretty low on the pay scale. Tweezers could be used as personal hygiene items as well - kind of like they are today. I have seen such items on eBay, but I've found the dating of items there is often very dodgy. If they came from a personal kit, my thought would be that they would belong to a upper class person (as opposed to a regular sailor).

Someone sent me a link via pm. Rather than do that, feel free to add links to the post and I'll put them into the first thread for you. That way your faves will get double exposure and this thread won't disappear.

I started actually posting direct links to vendors, so I am moving all the links to things on the forum to a new post, Below are links to various other topics on this forum containing links: General A somewhat compiled list of sites Clothing Good Costume Pirate needs pants New Pirate Clothing Online Footwear shoes Shoes - I feel in a bind 17th Century Shoe from Mount Misery Boots Anyone? Fine pairs o' boots Weapons Cutlass Resource - A Place to Find Swords Buying me a pistol! Real Cannon Information? muskets needed Cannon links? Small Miscellanea Pirate Jewelry Feather Source? Repro Ear Scoops and Personal Hygiene Items? Large Miscellanea Shackles and Irons A barrel source Feel free to add to the list.

Someone asked me where to buy PC stuff and darned if I could give her a direct answer. So I plowed through the threads here looking for a list of vendors and came up with a bunch. Note that I am not including fabric vendors or anything related to sewing - methinks that really belongs in the new forums in Pyrate Craft now. General Black Hand Trading Company - Consortium of craftsmen who make pirate and nautical items such as hats, tools, ditty bags, etc. Fall Creek Suttlery - focused on Civil War period G Gedney Godwin - an 18th C. Online Hypermart - Clothing, Gear, Musical Instruments, Medical Instruments, Shoes, Hat &c. Goosebay Workshops - Curious Items made from tin, copper, brass and wood Jas Townsend and Sons, Inc. - another 18th C. Online Hypermart Letters of Marque - Reproduction Documents, Leather Goods, Weapons, Navigational Tools and Accessories Museum Replicas - clothing, weapons, etc. from many time periods Smiling Fox Forge, LLC - 18th C. clothing, accessories, tents, &c. Smoke & Fire - Clothing, Hats, Gear & Accessories Tiger Lee's Pirate Fashions - Fantasy Clothing, Weapons, Coins, Mugs and other items Clothing - Period (or Periodish) At the Sign of the White Rose - Period Clothing by our own Hawkyns and Kathryn C&D Jarnagin - French & Indian War Era Clothing Hamilton Dry Goods - A place where I sometimes buy socks Neil Hurst Tailor The Quartermaster General- Clothing and other 18th century items. Sea-Purl - Loom Knitted Stuff Clothing - Fantasy Chrononaut Mercantile - Very nice pirate, medieval, faerie and steampunk clothing, accessories & jewelry Fantasy Costumes Odd Bodkin Renaissance Shop Renaissance Store Footwear Burnley & Towbridge Fugawee Shoes Hats Captain Jack's Pirate Hats - Fantasy Pirate Hats Caribbean Rose Pirate & Vintage Millinery Emporium (Etsy) Clearwater Hats - Fine Beaver Hats C. Fahey Capper & Knitter - 17th and 18th century knit caps" The Knit Kriket - Featuring fine Monmouth Caps Leather Goods Barbossa Leather - leather bags, baldrics & scabbards Leather Mystics - Fantasy Pirate leather goods Ravenswood Leather - clothing, leather accessories Jewelry TheTimeKeeper's Clip Clocks - featuring clocks disguised as cameos, broaches and pins C&B Treasures - Jewelry and jeweled skulls (!) Chrononaut Mercantile Miscellanea Ostrich.com - Feathers Madame Joan's Wee Wiggies - affordable maker of wigs and hair queues American Rope and Tar - Rope and...tar Brooks USA - Brass Tools & Cannon Backwoods Tin & Copper, LLC -Cooking, Kitchen - Coffee & Tea Pots, Boilers, Plates, Bowls, Ovens, Mugs and a PC Flask Black Bear Haversack Trading Post The Castaway Trading Company - Captain McCool's Jewelry, Hats and Pouch Etsy Site Miscellanea - Barrels Agri Supply- 3 Piece Wood Barrel Set Kentucky Barrels Thousand Oaks Barrel Tents Panther Primitives Tentsmiths Weapons - Hand Baltimore Knife and Sword Co. - Hand-forged knives and swords made by our own 1stMateMatt. Cutlass Resource - A Place to Find Swords - a sword vendor thread on the pub Cherry's Fine Guns Dixie Gun Works Kings Forge and Muzzleloading Kult of Athena - swords, axes, maces &c. Loyalist Arms Middlesex Village Trading - small and long arms Military Heritage Weapons and Uniforms Reliks Swords The Rifle Shoppe Track of the Wolf Weapons - Cannon Hatcher Gun Company Jefferson Armory Paulson Brothers Ordnance Company

I updated these links so that they work. I took the eBay links out since the auctions are probably long since over.

It's not up to me to sticky threads in forums where I am not a mod. However, I generally prefer to sticky only index threads or rules/guidelines threads. If an individual topic in a forum is that good, it will either wind up in the index threads (if they're kept up) or people will post to it and it will hover around the top of a forum. FYI, I am moving the oldest threads first. I don't know how Michael's moving them.

Wow, this is chock-a-block full of interesting info! Bump!

Just FYI, Michael Bagley and I will be moving threads related to creating outfits and building pirate-related items to the appropriate sub-forums in Pirate Craft. So if you can't find something that you used to find in here about those topics, please checkThe Pirate Craft forum. We are NOT leaving links from the old posts here, because the place would be littered with gobs of them if we did that. Sorry about the mess.

Patrick made this fine list and Stynky fouled it all up by changing the forums. (Bastage!) So I am fixing it. These links will work until Stynky changes things again.

HOW could this important thread be buried for so long? (A fascinating glimpse into the earliest days of the board - I just had to drag it up.)

It depends on what you want to do with yourself. If you're going fantasy (movie) pirate, you'll probably do well to investigate a local Ren Faire in your area between now and then. eBay can also provide some inexpensive help. If you want to hang out with many of the people you'll find posting in this forum, you'll probably want garb that is as PC (period correct) as you can manage. (Although this event is very open to beginners.) To learn more about PC garb, I would point you to other forums 'round these parts (look particularly for index threads which will be pinned at the top of some forums. Failing that, just browse around the forum.) To learn about where to buy things: The Thieves Market To learn how to make things: Pirate Craft To learn how everything you're going to try and buy or make is probably wrong and to debate things like "Why are square toed shoes completely wrong and/or completely right for period?" try: Captain Twill The world is now your oyster. Go forth and spend (and spend and spend and spend...)

I second blackjohn. Ya' got moxie. Good luck with your venture. (Alas, I will also not be at Port Washington. But since I belong to a crew that doesn't actually exist outside of a long weekend in Key West, my presence would add little anyhow.) welllll... somebody has to claim it !! so why not him ??? Yeah! Of course, that's not nearly as cool as the title "I Blame Duchess". "What kind of superhero would call himself 'Lord Smoked Meats and Fishes'?" "Ah. One who wants to use the element of surprise."

Consider it reserved and welcome aboard, Lad. By what name shall I list your wife? "You have a name, missy?" (Sorry, I just had to.)

Some of them were, but there were others that you never saw. Believe me when I say, everyone I showed it to made a sort of 'what is it?' face. Even the ones who recognized it immediately said 'A foot...?' in a tone that was incredulous, not flattering. I can see your point. It was just an idea.Well, I have the worst possible picture editing software (MS Paint), so this is a little raggedy looking (and even that took a lot of work), but I was playing with the flag and this was kinda' sorta' the type of thing I was thinking about. I mostly changed the skull, but I also did a little work on the left hand wing. The changes are very small there, mostly just making the feathers (other than the wave feather - which is a neat concept) more pointed. The right hand wing was not changed. (I do not suggest using this mess as the final flag, I just wanted to try and show you what I was thinking.)

I believe the My Feet! design was a foot from the bottom, wasn't it? I was thinking of something in profile - along these lines: Only with with the god Mercury-style wings coming off the back of the foot (and the foot facing the other direction - I think that would imply more speed for some reason.) Of course, I do not know from graphic design techniques and you are no doubt right about simplicity being king and the foot being hard to comprehend from a distance. Still, the flag design could retain simplicity and feature less roundness and curlicues and more angular lines. That was why I posted those images - the cheekbone is more pronounced and the eyes less round. The key to making a skull look evil seems to be in the eyes, brow and the cheekbone (and the teeth to some degree, but that would be very hard to include.) From reading about cartooning, angles imply power, danger and swiftness where roundness and curlicues imply softness and even cuteness. (This is a modern interpretation, of course.) But again, I have done no real work here and defer to your knowledge and willingness to undertake the design. It's just my 2¢.

Ya' know...I realize that's a very period-looking skull and it does indeed look just like photos I have seen on old graves. However, as a self-proclaimed connoisseur of skulls and skeletons - something I've loved and played with in haunted houses, artwork and even fiction since I was a kid - I think it should be bolder. I would think graves would tend to have a softer representation of skulls than a pirate might choose. They are not the only period skull/skeleton references that existed. For example, from John Woodall's The surgions mate, page 91 (1655 edition) we have this: And from James Cooke's Mellificium chirurgiæ, or, The marrow of chirurgery (1685), we have this: Just playing with an idea, I think it would be cool to have a skeletal foot in profile with wings at the back of it. Perhaps throw an hourglass in there in the corner. Of course, I have not offered up a fine example of graphic work like our Quartermaster has so boldly done. Don't get me wrong, I think William has evoked period examples very nicely and I know he put more than a little work and thought into it. And I am a pressed man - so I probably shouldn't get a vote. But since opinions were asked for, I offer mine, worth what you paid for it.

You know, if you got this thing to work, it'd probably be just as well organized as the pirate lords depicted in the movie. (Which means it might be fun to watch -- from the other side of the room.) As M.A. d'Dogge said, everyone has their own agenda - your best bet for publicizing inland pirate groups is to have pirate-themed events that the public and the other inland pirate groups want to go to. The events will probably publicize the pirate groups better than any concentrated advertising campaign. As for not holding it in a bar...that's probably the biggest obstacle to getting everyone to attend.

Then welcome aboard the Mercury, Lad. The Mercury, the ship of Unclaimed Pyrates. You will find that not all pyrates have a crew nearby. So it is with William and myself. Those that are willing are welcome to sign aboard the Mercury and join our camp. We are the lost boys (and girls). Fortunately there are no dues or actual rules that I'm aware of. Other than "Thou must be as PC as thy purse permits."

Actually, we had a long-running thread on this topic at piratesinfo.com several years ago which I couldn't find to cite when I first posted (they've re-organized the site and appear to have gotten rid of the search function). When I started posting in this thread, I looked up the definition for legal piracy at the freedictionary.com. I found a similar explanation for modern piracy on Cindy Vallar's site, but I did notice this referred to the modern definition. Since you cited so many sources, I'll be more than happy to defer when talking about the antiquated definition of piracy (pre-Geneva Convention -1958- apparently). In modern terms, these do not appear to apply legally to piracy, however.