Christopher Condent Flag - c.1718 - Pirate Wax Seal Stamp

Christopher Condent Flag, Three Skull Pirate Emblem - c.1718 - Historical Wax Seal Stamp

Wax seal stamp featuring the three-skull flag traditionally associated with Christopher Condent, an English pirate captain who became particularly successful in the Atlantic and Indian Ocean during the Golden Age of Piracy.

Condent’s early life is uncertain, and contemporary records preserve several versions of his name, including Congdon and Coudon. By 1718 he had emerged as captain of his own company and was operating between the Atlantic islands, West Africa and Brazil before sailing into the Indian Ocean.

His principal vessel was known in period records as the Dragon, although later histories frequently call it the Flying Dragon or Fiery Dragon. Condent and his crew eventually reached Madagascar and operated along some of the richest maritime trading routes connecting Africa, Arabia and India.

Unlike many pirates of the period, Condent eventually negotiated a pardon with the French authorities. In 1721 he and a number of his companions settled on the island of Bourbon, modern Réunion. Contemporary and later accounts describe him subsequently marrying into a prominent local family and eventually pursuing a mercantile life.

The flag traditionally attributed to Christopher Condent is particularly distinctive, displaying three white skull-and-crossed-bones emblems arranged across a black field.

There is, however, an important distinction between this familiar design and the surviving historical evidence.

The three-emblem flag first appeared in The Mariner’s Mirror in 1912, where it was presented as an old pirate flag but was not connected with Condent. Similar versions appeared in publications during the 1920s, before Charles Grey specifically attributed the design to Condent in Pirates of the Eastern Seas in 1933 without identifying supporting contemporary evidence.

There is nevertheless genuine period evidence that Condent’s ships displayed skull imagery. A report published in the St. James Post in June 1718 described his vessels carrying flags bearing skull emblems. This supports the central imagery of the traditional design, although it does not describe three separate skull-and-crossed-bones devices.

The stamp therefore reproduces the traditional Christopher Condent flag as it became established in later maritime history, while retaining a genuine connection to the skull imagery described by observers during Condent’s own lifetime.

A General History of the Pyrates also contains an account of Condent’s career. The work is one of the most influential early histories of Golden Age piracy, although its second volume — where Condent appears — is generally treated more cautiously by modern historians because some of its narratives contain substantial embellishment.

Design: Three skull-and-crossed-bones emblems
Traditional Association: Christopher Condent
Date: c.1718
Period: Golden Age of Piracy
Vessel: Dragon / Flying Dragon
Source Basis: Period skull imagery with later three-skull attribution
Stamp Size: 30 mm
Material: Solid brass
Type: Wax seal stamp / sealing stamp

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

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