Pirate ships were rowdy, boisterous vessels full of drunken rouges. Some of the most interesting and unusual Mythbusters that were mentioned in the reading talked about pirate treasures. But not all plunder consisted of gold and silver but instead cotton, tools, spare sails, and often tobacco. Pirate crews really did wear scarves across their heads and mostly were heavily armed with many guns and sharp cutlasses. I used to belive that pirate crews buried their treasure deep underground from location to location in order to hide their stolen goods from other crews but to my knowledge, instead, crews obtain loot, trade and barter the goods for better supplies to improve their ship. I found it interesting that common pirate punishments are much more crewel than the stereotypical ''walking the plank'' but instead were much more gruesome and included nails rough beatings dismemberment and in some cases cannibalism.
Its common knowledge that Pirates were fans of materialistic items. Whether its comfortable silk garments or large heavily armored warships previously owned by a corsair the if pirates wanted it they took by any means necessary with complete disregard to the laws or authority. Money in Spain ran on the reals system. With that, the Spanish gold escudo coin was first introduced in 1537 and its worth was sixteen reals and as the years progressed on its worth only doubled making it a heavily desired currency for all people. Pirates were interested in the smaller more low-risk ''pieces of eight'' which was 1/4 of a Spanish escudo coin. It was not illegal to alter money/currencies during this time. Because silvers and gold were valued by their weight instead of worth certain individuals would literally cut real into pieces making them worth much less. luckily this made the currency more acceptable to poor people or outlaws. This gave pirates an edge when it came to completing legal transactions, bribing, or trading up for better items or supplies towards the crew and ship but this method didn't last for ever.
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