🥇 BANNER 1817 Servant Slave Tag from the Plantation!!

[SC Keith]

I dug this servant slave tag on May 8th at a plantation in South Carolina. The tag was folded over when I dug it, so I had it straightened by a professional. My friend Mark was with me when I dug it and had recovered his own servant tag, an 1811 servant, the week before at this same place.
This 1817 dated tag is an early date for the slave hire badges, since the earliest known date on any tag is the year 1800. The number 67 is the issue sequence for the occupation of servant which the city of Charleston, S.C. issued during that calender year. Thanks for looking!
Keith

 

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[{Sentinel}]

Did the slaves have to wear the tags all the time or was it a record keeping system?
Thanks for the answer in advance.

Most of the slaves did not wear tags and I believe from what I read that tags allowed the owner of slave to hire out the slave to other locations. Mr. Lomax provided some great information here about the slave hire system. There is a great reference book "Slave Badges and the Slave-Hire System in Charleston, South Carolina" by Greene and Hutchins that explains the system and the various tags.

Keith,

How deep was the tag when you found it?

Rockyredbaron

shallow maybe 6"

Excellent find, Keith! And whoever did the restoration, did a great job. Great info on the tags too, Eddie.

Congrats!

Nana

Mr. Robert McDaniel did the restoration. He told me he has done over 30 tag restorations for one of the authors of the book reference on slave tags.

Thanks everyone for the nice comments! The pic here is the tag the way it was found. Most of these tags are found damaged in various degrees due to the thiness of the copper.
Keith

It came out in FANTASTIC condition!!! That's definitely a holy grail find for ANY collection. Congrats on a well-deserved banner.

 

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[whitesPA]

wow great find

 

[spitfire55]

 

[leslie(nova scotia)]

From the land of the Bluenose.....that would be a great find to research and see if you could locate who the tag was issued to!

 

[deano]

Wow, Wow, Wow!!!!!

 

[montepollock]

NO,Im not jealous But may You be plagued by constant repeatable signals and an urge to dig in the dirt.
Seriously,Congratulations,Im voting banner.
HH,Mont

 

[Southcacalaky]

Great Job Keith, Awesome find, HH Art....

 

[alderan33]

You lucky dog!! BANNER

 

[ZINCLID]

CONGRATS!!! I've heard that Alabama had some slave tags also but none have come to light---or none that I've heard of. The only one's I've heard of being found was around Charleston, S.C. or within a short distance of there--Savannah maybe? Some are worth as much as $thousands of bucks.----I've got a Fisher News paper that shows a piano player who detected around Charleston and had found around 30 tags---he had a nice collection ---I can't imagine owning 30 slave tags! CONGRATS ON YOURS!

 

[frank23]

The slave tags should be strong enough to keep the identity of slave. These are engraved for their security and strangeness. There is piece of metal used for these identification on which such engraving process has been done.