Friday, September 27, 2013
Pirate Treasure
Nightshade FX brings us this wonderful pirate themed tableau. The skullcap pirate map is a custom piece cast in resin. I believe the rest of the items are commercially available props, including the vintage style hand irons. What isn't off-the-shelf is the wonderful rusted patina on those cuffs.
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The cuffs could well be original mid 19th century although there are some fairly good copies made recently in India. If the patination is newly applied on a recent pair of cuffs, then it’s really well done. I wish there were more photos of the skullcap map bowls, because it’s quite interesting. Generally the designs are on the outside of the skull cap like Trantic skull caps. The photography is also rather good, moody without being too dark or having too much contrast.
It’s really quite a nice tableau other than some expected typical anachronisms, depending on the period portrayed. The cuffs are the screw lock type so common through the mid to late 19th century. The key is actually a screw that inserts in the side and when turned, withdrew a bolt and released the cuff. They are quite hard to pick, very robust and easy to manufacture.
The type of coins portrayed are of the “cob” type, being discoid’s cut from a metal bar and struck with a coin die, but lacking the more uniform edges of regular hand-struck coinage. The Spanish began to make milled edged coins 1732 to keep people from filing off bits of gold and silver of the earlier rough edged coins. The repro coins in the tableau can be bought on the internet, some of which look pretty good for photographic use or game play.
Early Spanish colonial coins: http://www.coins.nd.edu/ColCoin/ColCoinIntros/Sp-Cobs.intro.html
An interesting history of handcuffs from The Strand Magazine, 1894 http://www.weapons-universe.com/Law_Enforcement/Handcuffs/History/History_of_Handcuffs.shtml and a history of locks: http://www.historicallocks.com/en/site/hl/HistoricalLocks/Dictionary/
Trantic Kapala skull cups: http://www.himalayanmart.com/Kapala_Human_Skull.php
What I find quite a nice combination is the fossil Megalodon tooth in this pirate prop set. The tooth of a giant shark associated with such items makes already stuff for a story.
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