With the focused intensity of a man determining his ship's fate on an open sea, a costumed interpreter at Mystic Seaport raises a gleaming sextant to his eye — a living tableau of 19th-century maritime navigation frozen in Robert E. Hearsey's rich 1982 photograph. The subject, a bearded, bowler-hatted re-enactor in white linen shirt and black vest, holds the instrument with practiced confidence against the warm mahogany tones of a ship's hull, every detail of the brass sextant crisp and instructive. Mystic Seaport Museum in Connecticut — the nation's largest maritime museum, founded in 1929 — was at the height of its interpretive programming in the early 1980s, deploying skilled craftspeople, chantey singers, and demonstration teams to bring 19th-century coastal New England life viscerally alive for visitors. This Continental Card format card (1982 copyright, Mystic Seaport Museum Stores, Inc., produced by Mike Roberts Color Productions, Oakland) is unused and in excellent condition, a wonderful artifact of the golden era of living history museums.