Swashbuckler 1700

I will soon get "Pirate: The Golden Age" For Christmas.... Yeah the book is not completely for my liking (i know I have read many parts of it) but it has still some nice info and pictures are quite OK. I had time to look some weapon pages in it and there the dock lock musket (painted black) was said to be standard for the navy and it was only example of period musket in book's huge weapons page. I truly wonder was the black dog lock muskets indeed so standard weapons Gaop or is it one of the numerous generalizations in that book I wonder how much ship even had weapons like muskets meaning trade ships not pirates or navy... at least pirates might get their hands on some African trade guns etc. .

The last picture makes me wonder did Spanish actually use Mediterranean like galleys in Americas or was it just an European illustrator who knew what Spanish ships were like in the Mediterranean Sea but not what they were like in America....

http://www.hermitage...tsar/images.htm There is a picture of Peter's hat. I wonder is it the same than this.... it looks different and darker but I wonder how many hats Peter even had http://www.ivanhenry...age37_177_1.png

I have not been active here for a while since I have had other interests. But now I am posting fascinating pictures. Well clothing again…. for some reason I think it to be interesting and fun to study while I have no technical reason to do so: This time I am fascinated by coats. Not justacorps but garment which I call “mariners long coat” which appears to be a more practical form of the long men’s coat or long waistcoat –usually with split style mariners cuffs. I have seen these in quite a few period pictures and I see these could be the sailors coat for bad weather when puny short jacket was not enough. I think these kind of coats were used by many officers in the navies and other like captains and perhaps indeed pirate captains. This can be seen in a painting of a Dutch captain made in 1709. I have seen a better picture of it and the color of the coat is dark blue. This seems to be an accurate copy (with some watermarks) and see what a sea gunner is wearing in 1692 And as a final touch a picture from the 1701. Look at the right. That man that is an English sailor, accordingly to Foxe’s post in another pirate forum I wonder why these kind of coats are not seen among reenactors –they appear to be accurate and they are quite close to the iconic justacorps coat. I have liked these coats so much that I have used these in my own drawlings. see here http://pyracy.com/in...cy-1690s-1720s/ Now being less naïve than before, I am actually getting the Osprey’s "Pirate: the Golden Age for Christmas", the very same book which I have criticized -perhaps too harshly.

Nice ,) but I cannot see the date 1680 as a really sensible starting point. Or did something unusual actually happened then? I found no reason for that. But it is fine but now I prefer 1690(or 1691)-1725. However this is rather meaningless; it is rather artificial to hunt specific dates for historical periods like gaop.

Perhaps it would be better to let someone more aware of these things to answer but I go anyway. Port Royal was not just a pirate city there was many kind of people there including gentleman who would certainly have some boots. Also in 1692 boots, while not in fashion anymore, were likely more popular than in later gaop as there was less time from that age when they were really popular. And well the sea boot looks to be a quite a bit shorter and more practical than casual bucket boots... And both Pyle and Hollywood get their ideas from two sources: History but more commonly from a thing called imagination.

One thing that I have always thought as inaccuracy in these circa 1725 pictures are the large broadswords(like Philips) and scimitar(Worley) style swords. I have thought that illustrators might have seen sailors and naval officers alike and based their pirate pictures on them. However not often officers or sailors had their all weapons with them on land (well officer might have fines words but that was it.. I think that no sailor with boarding axe was seen in ports). Thus I have thought that picture maker had improvised with the weapons more than with other details. However this kind of weapons are similar that those in this more reliable picture about French land officer in 1678. I am not saying that weapons like in those pictures were actually used by pirates I am just saying that that kind of weapons existed in the period. (Picture from http://www.benersonlittle.com/bio.htm)