Button made of putor

[kimonswanson643]

I found this button at a civil war site any ideas would be appreciated. It's completely smooth and looks like putor but I'm not sure never found something like this before. Looks like a iron shank? Any ideas would help. Thank you

 

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[Icewing]

Pewter tends to look more like lead or aluminum.
I can't say with 100% certainty, but I think it's probably tombac.

 

[Kiros32]

Tombac for sure.

 

[kimonswanson643]

What is tombac

 

[Dug]

What is tombac

The style/type of construction.

Posted by Woodland Detectors on July 3, 2011: Tombac is an alloy formed from a mix of copper (84 - 90%) and zinc (10 - 16%) and sometimes the addition of arsenic which produces a White Tombac. The zinc content is what makes the button surface stay shiny emulating polished silver. Early Tombac buttons date from the 17th century (Pimple Types) but most were mass produced in the Late 18th century most were engine turned on a lathe, others were hand engraved with different themes like hunting scenes & Floral designs probably sold as gift sets, these are allot rarer than the more common machine turned types. On the reverse most have a raised cone shaped base for the soldered copper wire shank the smaller types also shown below tend to have iron shanks ..Generally made for civilian use but also made for the Military of the period. Here is a general selection of what can be found on sites across Britain.

 

[Icewing]

What is tombac

Tombac is the name of the metal alloy.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tombac