Button - this much i know

[thedukeofdelaware]

Anyone know the age? It isnt flat, it is concave (or is it convex?). Weighs 0.22 oz, diameter is 0.83 inch and it is 1.2mm thick. No visible markings. Thanks for looking!

 

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[thedukeofdelaware]

Actually it is 1.03 inches in diameter..

 

[smokeythecat]

Looks like a colonial flat button. After about 1800 the style was to put a backmark on them, it was standard within a decade of then.

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

It appears to be a White Tombac 1-piece button with a "spun back" -- meaning, the button was placed in a lathe which spun the button while a lathing tool trimmed down the back to a smooth surface, often leaving tiny concentric rings showing on the back. You'll see one of the type you found in the two button-dating charts attached below. One chart says it is from 1760 to 1785. The other says simply "18th to early-19th century." (Meaning, 1700s to early-1800s.) In view of the massive quantities dug in Virginia and other east-coast states, I believe there's too many to have been made only in a 25-year span. So I'd date your button as being from sometime between the mid-1700s and about 1810, when "ornate" goldplated brass 1-piece flatbuttons became more popular than these plain-front buttons..

By the way... White Tombac is a dull silver-grey colored metal. It differs from regular Tombac (an alloy containing about 85% copper with 15% zinc) by having a small amount of the metal Arsenic added into the alloy while molten, which changes the metal's color from golden to silvery-grey.

 

[CRUSADER]

Agreed, tombac button.

 

[thedukeofdelaware]

Wow, thank you!

 

[dts52]

It appears to be a White Tombac 1-piece button with a "spun back" -- meaning, the button was placed in a lathe which spun the button while a lathing tool trimmed down the back to a smooth surface, often leaving tiny concentric rings showing on the back. You'll see one of the type you found in the two button-dating charts attached below. One chart says it is from 1760 to 1785. The other says simply "18th to early-19th century." (Meaning, 1700s to early-1800s.) In view of the massive quantities dug in Virginia and other east-coast states, I believe there's too many to have been made only in a 25-year span. So I'd date your button as being from sometime between the mid-1700s and about 1810, when "ornate" goldplated brass 1-piece flatbuttons became more popular than these plain-front buttons..

By the way... White Tombac is a dull silver-grey colored metal. It differs from regular Tombac (an alloy containing about 85% copper with 15% zinc) by having a small amount of the metal Arsenic added into the alloy while molten, which changes the metal's color from golden to silvery-grey.

Thanks for the great info.
HH
dts