My compass works fine

[rexluscus]

Is there anything remarkable about Jack's compass, physically? I mean, does anyone know enough about age-of-navigation compasses to be able to put a rough year and make on it? Can a country of manufacture be discerned? Presumably the production designers based it on a real instrument

Comments

[p0wdermonkey]

viva_gloria and I saw a compass in the Whipple Museum in Cambridge that looked extremely like Jack's. It was Portuguese and from the right period as far as I remember. I can't find an image of it online but the link below shows one that's fairly similar, although less like Jack's.
http://www.aaei.org/aaei/files/ccLibraryFiles/Filename/000000000230/compass.jpg

Doesn't Tia call it "the compass you traded from me" or something like that in DMC?

[rexluscus]

Ooooh cool! Was it octagonal?

Yeah, somebody set me straight on that - Tia does say words to that effect.

[p0wdermonkey]

I think it was square, but very similar in general look and size. Actually it was on loan to somewhere in America so all we really saw was a photo of it, but we both immediately said, "That's Jack's compass!"

[rexluscus]

Neat! Maybe I'll try to track it down. Don't know why I've become obsessed with the compass. Our minds seize hold of certain things, I guess...

[p0wdermonkey]

It's in the Whipple Museum of the History of Science in Cambridge (or not in there at the moment, but there's a photo and an information entry on the computer).
www.hps.cam.ac.uk/whipple

They also have lots of Pirates era navigational instruments including telescopes in various sizes, some of them made by Christopher Cock. I was writing Fifth Nut Out at the time, so viva_gloria and I giggled girlishly.

[rexluscus]

Oh wow so cool! The astronomical compendia! I'm in love. :) Thanks!