The "norm"

 As has already been mentioned, this is a question that has no answer to date...
 Or it is a question we ask ourselves and others we care to share it with so as to keep ourselves honest...
 Possibly, we might also find ourselves giving it as advise to others new to the Craft.
 Before I delve into my comment I wanted to mention that I DO NOT just do this for myself or in a solo fashion.
 I certainly could, as I do with other related aspects to this lifestyle such as hunting, hiking, fishing, camping, etc...
 I absolutely enjoy the social settings I find at Period events of all types.
 I relish carousing, drinking, eating and cooking with like minds in such an environment.
 Being a Sicilian, I enjoy hosting a feast and sharing it with people I know and people I don't know until they share a meal a bottle in my camp.
 All the while, I am interviewing them : I ask them questions, I check out their gear and garb, I speculate on popular theories with them and in general I enjoy their company.
 From this I feel I learn about myself, my perceptions, misconceptions, what to do and how to do it and also what to avoid.
 Could I learn this from studying?
 YES.
 Its not as much fun to me however, and it doesn't produce anything in regards to a network for future endeavors.
 NOW, a brief comment on Mark Baker cultists before I move on:
 Being a reformed MBC myself I must say that if you followed every bit of Baker's advice especially from his early years, you may run the risk of being inaccurate in several ways.
 I believe that one of them would be is that everything you have would be dyed in walnut hulls as 'Nock mentioned.
 Another excellent point brought up by 'Nock was that it was more than likely your Lady who would be making your clothing.
 Not sure about the rest of you, but I've noticed that women can be "slightly" competitive and making a shirt for her man that looked like everybody else's might not happen.
 They would find a way to make it 'better" than the rest.
 Poverty would definitely play a factor but a crafty woman would harvest native plants to make dyes out of and come up with something that was not walnut brown.
 Another point I would bring up would be that in doing your research early on you may find that folding handled skillets were documented but in reality they may not have been all that common.
 Its up to you to carry one or not HOWEVER, BE ADVISED someone, somewhere WILL bring up that your skillet is not "accurate" for the aforementioned reason.
 You will have to decide as you deepen in this craft if you want your items because they are "technically" accurate and please you OR do you want to delete certain items so that at an event you don't have someone chittering at you like a red squirrel over your interpretation.
 This would be what could be considered the down side to being a person that is not a Solo practitioner.
 I've gone on quite a bit and I'm not sure I've spoken enough to the original topic so I'll stop here...
 
 

 Thank you 'Nock, I don't mind carrying on a bit more!!
 We need to learn from those who came before us, Yes?
 I find myself studying the Old Ones as well as the contemporaries that have written themselves into legend in our Craft.
 Those who are less known but from that same age of discovery in our Lifestyle probably critique the latter harsher than we ever could as they were actually THERE when the incidents that inspired the articles happened and quite often they are two different stories.
 Just as what had become Gospel documentation turns out to be not EXACTLY true as further research has produced new information contrary to the Gospel.
 Here I am referring to the topic of cotton as an example.
 I know this is entirely different thread so I won't beat this horse too much here.
 I will pose this : Wouldn't it be entirely possible for someone in a region where cotton wasn't produced to either obtain an article of clothing made from it or the fabric itself by trading?
 Since it has shown itself listed in French manifests could an Ex-soldier/militiamen have a acquired a cotton shirt/s and brought them home where they are not common?
 I know this train of thought is a slippery slope and can end with the dreaded "It stands to reason...", HC/PC conversational death knell BUT the possibility can't be ruled out COMPLETELY.
 Now if you're "that Guy" that has a unique item/s and a story to explain away the existence of each one, then of course other Students of the Craft will not take you seriously but one or two items in your kit of this type wouldn't be a crime.
 I would just choose them carefully.
  

My enjoyment of the hobby in mostly a solo way is probably down to my personality, mostly, I would guess. I have always been one who not only tolerates time to myself but actually needs it to balance my world. I enjoy good companionship as well as the next man, but a little lasts me a fair time. I've been that way all my life, long  before I found that black powder guns didn't disappear with Ol' Dannel.

Some outside influences undoubtedly flavored my idea of what I enjoy in the natural world and how I like to do it. When I first dipped my toe into the re-enacting puddle I was invited by a group from a local BP club to join them on their annual "survival weekend". That meant taking oil, meal or flour and living totally off the land. I collected a squirrel with my flintlock and some bluegills from a small stream with my primitive fishing gear and was enjoying myself. Of 10 participants only 3 made any real effort to abide by the agreement, one guy open a can of sardines and said, I swear to god, "It they had had them they would have eaten them."

Another invite, to a club meeting in the woods, and I guess they were re-enacting a wild and wooly rendezvous. Most all of them got falling down drunk. They built a huge bonfire, 10 feet across, and when it subsided a little they threw a long board 10" wide across it and took turns walking over it, teetering to keep their balance, whooping and yelling, with the fire licking at their heels. If anyone had fallen he would have been seriously injured, but I guess that was the way to prove their manliness that day.

A lot of the activities I've seen in primitive camps over the years make it seem the main purpose of the gathering is to get away from the wife, drink to excess and cut the badger loose. Never needed that, don't enjoy it, don't enjoy being around it.  

I've had some close friends as hunting and re-enacting companions, enjoyed my times with them more than I can say, but my most pleasant memories are of time spent alone in the woods. 

Sorry, got carried away.

Spence

 Spence,
 I do agree there are more than a few "bad apples", in various forms, amongst the people you meet at public or even private events.
 I can't say that in my short tenure that I haven't met my share.
 Like so many instances in Life, and much like hunting, you will find good things when you are looking between the trees of the forest instead of right at them.
 Its still worth it to me to look for these other like minds mixed in with the morons and if all goes mostly well, make memories with them.