The Last Meeting of the Thirteen Club - Found on a Vintage Film Photo

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Tucked inside a worn leather album, I found this vintage film photo — its edges brittle, the surface dulled with age.

Seventeen gentlemen, though only sixteen faces. One man’s arm, cropped at the shoulder, stubbornly insists on being part of the moment — a ghost limb hinting at a larger story.

The men vary in age, from fresh-faced lads barely into their twenties to silver-haired elders whose eyes have seen too many winters. Most wear mustaches, though four clean-shaven faces stand out in the group.

There’s a peculiar closeness about them — a sense of inside jokes and old mischief, captured forever in a single vintage film photograph. One man in the back grins as he raises his hat above the head of a solemn fellow seated in front of him. A crooked picture frame hangs on the wall, a tall window letting in the diffuse light of a late afternoon.

There’s a story here. And it goes something like this:

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The Last Meeting of the Thirteen Club Captured on a Vintage Film Photo

They called themselves The Thirteen Club.

Founded in 1887 by a superstitious watchmaker named Elias Bragg, the group was made up of men who shared a simple belief: mock bad luck at every turn.

Thirteen members. Thirteen toasts. Meetings held on the 13th of every month at exactly 1:13 PM. They dined under ladders, opened umbrellas indoors, and spilled salt without a care. They made a sport of superstition, daring fate to strike.

And every original member, by unspoken agreement, wore a mustache.

At the time, there was an old superstition claiming a thick, well-kept mustache could ward off misfortune — even bullets. Some soldiers swore by their “bulletproof mustaches,” believing the bristles above their lip held some mystical protection.

The men of The Thirteen Club wore theirs like armor. Keeping them polished and handsomely groomed at all times.

As years passed and the original thirteen’s numbers dwindled — claimed by war, influenza, or the steady march of time — sons, nephews, apprentices, and close friends were invited into the fold.

By 1919, only thirteen mustaches remained. The four clean-shaven faces you see in this vintage film photo were the next generation, not yet permitted to grow their own whiskered shields.

Notice Albert Finch, grinning in the back as he hovers his hat above the head of old Sir Thomas Price. The young man in front of them, clean-shaven with his hat tipped slightly to the side, is William “Will” Bragg — great-nephew to Elias himself and the last living link to the club’s founder.

The crooked picture frame hung behind Big Al in the back row wasn’t an accident. It was a symbol of their defiance. The man cropped out of the frame all the way to the left? That would be Harold Sykes — perpetually late, forever insisting on squeezing into the photo at the last second even if it meant only his arm would be in the frame.

This photograph was taken at their final gathering.

Why was this the last meeting?

Their world had changed as The Great War claimed several of the original members. The influenza pandemic swept through their town, taking more. And when Elias Bragg himself — the club’s founder and spiritual center — passed away the previous winter, the remaining men agreed the time had come.

Without their leader and with only thirteen mustaches left among them, they decided to gather one final time. To raise their glasses, defy fate once more, and honor the camaraderie they had built over three decades.

They called it The Last Defiance. Thirteen final toasts to superstition, to friendship, and to the absurd notion that a well-groomed mustache might somehow hold misfortune at bay.

A brotherhood captured forever in a fading vintage film photograph.