The curious case of Captain Crunch

A while back I reported on the peculiar knock off cereal brands to be found at Aldi.  I actually took pictures of several, and one image just nagged at me.  It's this:

If you did not immediately think of Capn' Cruch then the copyright dodging generic peddlers should hire some new creative staff.  For comparison here is a genuine version.

Sure this appears to be some French Canadian variant but it highlights the question that started nagging me almost immediately.  What Navy did the Captain serve in, and was he really a Captain?

This question has been brought up before.  Back in 2013 a discussion thread arose that claimed that Capn' Crunch was a fraud.  Yes, based on his uniform he was felt to be no more than a Commander (in the modern day US Navy).  

The discussion can be found HERE.  It got picked up by various news sources including NPR.  I contend that they got it quite wrong and I'm here to stick up for the stumpy little sugar merchant.

There are plenty of images from commercials and other advertisements that agree with the image on the knock off "Krunch".  They all depict him existing in a world where the ships were powered by sail and had smooth bore cannon firing from enclosed gun decks.  That means somewhere in the century or two leading up to, roughly, the American Civil war.  After that it was steam power and Monitor style turrets.  As such, the first claim, that his three stripes indicate a lower rank, is specious.  We need to look at uniforms from the appropriate period.

When the Captain is heard to speak, at least in US commercials, he does not have a discernable accent.  So unless he was, say, a Loyalist serving in the Royal Navy after the Revolution we can focus on the early United States Navy.

The elements of the uniform that are of note are several.  Blue coat, high collar, three sleeve stripes, golden epaulets on both shoulders, and an odd period hat.  So....how to narrow this down?

In the first issued US Navy Uniform regulations (1797) epaulets were specified.  Captains wore one on each shoulder.  Lieutenants only on one.  Things got a big more complicated with the major revisions to uniform that came along in 1852 - when a matched set was allowed for lower ranked officers, but it is still a point in favor of the Capn'. In this as in many things the US Navy closely followed contemporary Royal Navy fashions.  In the US Navy by the way, epaulets were phased out in the 1930's which makes the determination of rank by modern standards just plain wrong.

In 1852 more specific regulations were codified.  These lasted with slight modifications through the Civil War period.  To summarize, an officer with the rank of Captain would wear a Navy Blue coat with two rows of large brass buttons.  A stand up collar was specified, of a height not to interfere with movement of the chin.  Cuffs were to have three bands of gold lace.  Here's an image of several officers in the 1852 version of dress uniform.  Note the Captain who is second from the right.  

Hey, it's all there.  True, Capn' Crunch is wearing his hat sideways.  Perhaps it was knocked askew by the same near miss explosion that detached both of his eyebrows and stuck them on the hat.  This would explain much including his generally daffy demenour.  Let's not be too hard on the guy.  It's really just a bit of shell shock not some poseur trying for a bit of nautical "Stolen Glory" status!  Besides, by long standing tradition the officer in command of any vessel, no matter what his actual rank, is always referred to as captain.  The word simply denotes "the head man", and is a term of respect afforded to those in charge of commissioned vessels ranging from mighty battle cruisers on down to dowdy supply ships laden with high fructose corn syrup.