Tuesday, March 17, 2015

Vintage Card Of The Month: 1958 Leaf Cardo Captain Kidd


This month’s VCoM comes from the 1958 Leaf Cardo Trading Cards release. Leaf released the product as a cohesive collection but it is actually broken down in what could be best described as subsets. The set is made up of automobiles, Wild West combat, pirates, planes/jet fighters and Presidents. Each subset actually contains its own numbering so I don’t know if you can say a complete set would contain just one subset or all of the subsets together.

Today’s card comes from the pirate’s subset and is titled “Captain Kidd Stops a Mutiny” and is #P-4 on the checklist.

Captain William Kidd was born in Scotland around 1645 and was a privateer, a hired pirate mercenary, for the English. The English gave him freedom to roam the Caribbean and North American Atlantic coast to attack French and pirate ships but in 1698 he took a ship owned by an English captain and this is when he was labeled a pirate and hunted. Eventually he was captured near Boston in 1699 and placed in prison where he was tortured before being sent to England to stand trial. He was found guilty and hung (twice) on May 23, 1701.

The card is incorrect in the title and back biography. There was not an actual mutiny starting, Kidd killed one of his gunners (William Moore) out of anger. Moore wanted to attack a Dutch ship and Kidd refused out of fear of angering the Dutch King. The disagreement between Kidd and Moore escalated, Kidd grabbed a bucket and slammed it against Moore’s head fracturing his skull. Though there is some truth that his crew was frustrated over the death of a portion of the crew due to an outbreak of cholera and then a year of limited pirating activity. Some did abandon the ship when it docked and others were quite mutinous but there was never a mutiny attempt.

The card is in nice condition for a 56-year old card. There is some staining on the front and a bit on the back, a small crease on the back corner and paper separation on two corners but otherwise the colors are still bold and visible.

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