Stede Bonnet Flag - c.1718 - Pirate Wax Seal Stamp

Stede Bonnet Flag, Gentleman Pirate Emblem - c.1718 - Historical Wax Seal Stamp

Wax seal stamp featuring the flag traditionally associated with Stede Bonnet, the Barbadian landowner better known as the “Gentleman Pirate”.

Bonnet was unusual among Golden Age pirates. Born into a prosperous family in Barbados, he owned land and had little maritime experience before unexpectedly fitting out the sloop Revenge at his own expense in 1717. Contemporary accounts describe him as educated and financially comfortable, making his move into piracy particularly unusual for the period.

His career brought him into contact with Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard. Bonnet’s limited experience at sea allowed Teach to assume effective control of his vessel for a time, although Bonnet later regained command and renamed the ship Royal James.

The flag traditionally attributed to Bonnet shows a skull above a horizontal bone, with a dagger on one side and a heart on the other. This familiar design is widely reproduced today, but its direct connection to Bonnet is uncertain. Contemporary reports provide firmer evidence that his crew used a dark red flag and, on at least one occasion, a flag displaying a skull. The more elaborate skull, bone, dagger and heart arrangement appears to come from a later, undated flag manuscript rather than a surviving description from Bonnet’s own lifetime.

A General History of the Pyrates, first published in 1724, contains one of the earliest extended accounts of Bonnet’s career and helped establish much of his later reputation. An engraving associated with the work shows Bonnet beside a skull-and-crossbones flag, although that particular flag design is now understood to have been associated with Richard Worley rather than Bonnet himself.

For that reason, this stamp reproduces the traditional Stede Bonnet emblem as it became established in later pirate imagery, while recognising that the surviving contemporary evidence points to simpler flag designs.

Bonnet has also become familiar to modern audiences through Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, where he appears as a historical character alongside Edward Kenway, Blackbeard and other figures from the early 18th-century Caribbean. Ubisoft specifically lists Stede Bonnet among the historical pirates featured in the game.

Design: Traditional Stede Bonnet flag
Person: Stede Bonnet
Date: c.1718
Period: Golden Age of Piracy
Vessels: Revenge / Royal James
Nickname: The Gentleman Pirate
Source Basis: Traditional attribution with contemporary skull-flag evidence
Stamp Size: 30 mm
Material: Solid brass
Type: Wax seal stamp / sealing stamp

Each stamp is made of solid brass, fitted with a wooden handle and presented in a velvet pouch.

Suitable for letters, envelopes, maritime collections, historical displays, nautical-themed stationery, pirate collections and decorative sealing.