✅ SOLVED Any thoughts on what this may have been? Similar to a buckle in size.

[BladeRunner2019]

I found this recently. It was folded in half when I pulled it out of the ground and looked like a piece of junk tin. It wasn't until later when I was cleaning out my pouch that I noticed it had some designs on it.

It's about the size of a belt buckle, but has nothing on the back that would indicate it was a buckle. I know the pictures don't show much detail, but it's in pretty bad shape.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Front

Backside

 

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[jewelerguy]

looks like a circa 1840 stamped brass militia plate to me, or at least what's left of one

 

[BladeRunner2019]

looks like a circa 1840 stamped brass militia plate to me, or at least what's left of one

View attachment 1283918

Thanks! That is SO cool! I was looking at it upside down!

It's probably a lost cause, but is there any chance this could be somewhat flattened out without destroying the rest of it?

 

[jewelerguy]

personally, I wouldn't try it. with my luck it would break in half

 

[BladeRunner2019]

personally, I wouldn't try it. with my luck it would break in half

Yea I'm probably lucky it didn't break when I straightened it as much as I did.

 

[mcl]

Sadly I don't have any better pictures from this piece after I was able to clean it up more and see the design details and patent stampings, BUT, in some ways your piece reminds me of something I once found: coloration, damage, size, thickness, etc.. a cover plate from the lock of a steamer trunk. The stamps showed tons of dates as I recall, the earliest was I believe 1867, went through the 1870s. The picture is horrible and I apologize for that, but if you look closely, just below the frame of the key hole you can see a faint stamp that says "SEP" for the month of September. I believe the dates are patent dates. There are other design aspects there but honestly I doubt they are visible unless you know what is there beforehand due to the bad picture; there are stars, etched borders e.g. around the key hole plate, etc. Believe it or not, even with all that nasty red coloration there, it ended up being made of BRASS.

May or may not be something similar to what you have.



-mcl

edit: derp I just saw a more convincing ID above. Well at least my story was good.