It makes me think of an antique age when communications were slow and primitive, people were much more isolated and stories of somewhere a few hundred miles away by ship seemed strange and exotic.
1972 sounds about right.
Made of finest silver from the north of Spain? It’s not the jewelry that makes it sound old, it’s the description.
Why is that old? I’ve bought amber jewelry from the Baltic. It is what it is. How else would you describe it?
How many contemporary women walk around wearing a locket bearing the name of the man she loves? On a chain from the north of Spain?
Maybe we can start a poll? 
I always interpreted it as a contemporary song and for whatever reason assumed the sailor served on a merchant ship. Was it a freight liner or a tramp trader? I always assumed the latter for some reason, probably because a tramp trader is more romantic. Elliot Lurie wrote the song, and being from New York might have seen a few sailors in his day, so contemporary seems most likely to me.
It has always struck me taking place in another era. Could be the 1950s, or 1850s, or 1750s, but not contemporary. I love the ambiguity of it.
What makes it sound then-contemporary to me is that the woman is named ‘Brandy’. That’s not a name that screams 18th C.
No, but if she serves sailors whisky and wine, as the song says, she serves them brandy too. Might be where she got her name. “That broad who’s always wondering if we want some brandy? Yeah, well, ‘Brandy,’ as she might as well be called …”
The song can take place at any time. I always imagine that the patrons of the bar are merchant seamen. The bar itself is like the place in “Airplane!” only without the disco music. Not fancy, and it’s populated by the kind of people your parents warned you about. But as far as the sailors are concerned, it gets the job done.
Brandy is the one bright and clean thing in it.
This is roughly when I thought the song was set, for that reason.
Can’t be contemporary; don’t sailors nowadays all have pRon on their phones?
ETA: whelp, I know what earworm is gonna be stuck in my head for a while …
Well, that’s the point, isn’t it. You can today easily buy amber jewelry from the Baltic. Anyone can.
The song makes it sound like a silver chain from Spain is something rare from a distant land. Something that only a sailor could obtain.
I say the song takes place in the age of sail, or early steam age, when Spain was several weeks travel away from America, especially when leaving from a Western bay, and few non-sailors would ever make the trip.
The song’s narrator is the one telling is the sailor is truthful. The narrator is telling us the sailor is honest. I guess you can believe the narrator is lying, but that makes no sense since these are made up people anyway.
About what? He’s already married?
He’s got a girl in every port and he buys those lockets wholesale from Cid’s Northern Spain Jewelry Outlet.
There’s a sailor in every port, and there’s some port in every sailor.
I wonder about the “port on a western bay.” Is it a port on the North American west coast? Or is it a port on the west coast of Great Britain or Ireland? The former seems unlikely; the latter seems much more likely, especially if Brandy has a locket from northern Spain.
I assumed a bay in the Mediterranean. Not sure why. Certainly not on the Barbary Coast. The towns there are never silent,
I wouldn’t say it’s “easy.” That shit is expensive.
Is the silver from the north of Spain, or is the chain?
I’d say neither. Based on my experience in Spain, in the southern part, the quality silver, and silverwork, comes from the southern part. Andalusia, and around it.
I always assumed contemporary and San Diego.