Cavalry Button

[Older The Better]

Got out this afternoon and started to hit an old barn site, hoping to find another barber coin or other old coins, I found a bit of a pocket knife… then it occurred to me it had rained and i decided to switch sites to see if i could see some more pottery as i detect. I’m always looking for makers marks to get a better idea of the site. I knew i probably wouldn’t score a coin and I’ve hit it hard so may come up totally empty but you never know.
So I got to my 1860-1870 site and did a lot of walking without a good signal, dug some iffy ones and got a big piece of scrap iron and a square nail that for some reason was giving me a deep small high tone… I hit on a couple round balls and that got me going a bit. Then I hit a nice high tone… can scrap. Walked a ways hit another high tone, can… walked more got a different high tone, more can, by that point I was about ready to call it but kept my line and hit another high tone… I was thinking here we go again but might as well get it out. When I realized it was deeper I was a little more careful. Then I hit a round edge with my finger, i removed a little more dirt and saw the shank that’s when I knew it was no can. I took a few pics and then out popped a beautiful domed button with an eagle on it and a little gilt flashing through the dirt.
Got it home and ran it under the sink and a c appeared on the eagle. Scored a civil war cavalry button, second one from this site and this one is In much much better shape. It’s a huge score for a little farm field in Kansas, it was Indian territory right up to the civil war and no skirmishes anywhere in the area that I know of makes civil war military artifacts extremely rare… still hoping to score a mine ball.
So I intend to do some googling but I’ll ask here too, how do you clean a guilted button? I assume an Andres pencil is too rough? I’d love to get as much detail as I can and to read the back but I don’t want to take off the remaining gold color. Have it soaking in filtered water right now, not quite distilled but it’s what I’ve got available.

 

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[Gene Mean]

Great find! Congrats!!

 

[Nathan W]

Nice, that's a huge hole

 

[ncsuwolf]

Nice find. Your soil is apparently much nicer to buttons than in va. Be careful cleaning…..remember you can always clean more, but you can never clean less

 

[Older The Better]

Benefit of hunting a farm field, I’m not hurting anything turning over dirt. Since I got a good pin pointer what I’ve started doing is waving it over the ground where I get a signal depending on the reaction I’ll remove a little or a lot of dirt until I’m close then I’ll use my finger so I don’t damage the object… I start wide hoping to get a clear insitu and once I get a good idea I’ll narrow it down.

 

[Older The Better]

So I saw some say don’t soak them so I pulled it out and gave it a little scrub with a tooth brush and tested an Andre’s pencil on the crud in the shield. May not clean up as much as I hoped but it’s not terrible, little disappointed in the back mark so far

 

[E-Trac-Ohio]

Excellent find !

 

[Digger RJ]

Got out this afternoon and started to hit an old barn site, hoping to find another barber coin or other old coins, I found a bit of a pocket knife… then it occurred to me it had rained and i decided to switch sites to see if i could see some more pottery as i detect. I’m always looking for makers marks to get a better idea of the site. I knew i probably wouldn’t score a coin and I’ve hit it hard so may come up totally empty but you never know.
So I got to my 1860-1870 site and did a lot of walking without a good signal, dug some iffy ones and got a big piece of scrap iron and a square nail that for some reason was giving me a deep small high tone… I hit on a couple round balls and that got me going a bit. Then I hit a nice high tone… can scrap. Walked a ways hit another high tone, can… walked more got a different high tone, more can, by that point I was about ready to call it but kept my line and hit another high tone… I was thinking here we go again but might as well get it out. When I realized it was deeper I was a little more careful. Then I hit a round edge with my finger, i removed a little more dirt and saw the shank that’s when I knew it was no can. I took a few pics and then out popped a beautiful domed button with an eagle on it and a little gilt flashing through the dirt.
Got it home and ran it under the sink and a c appeared on the eagle. Scored a civil war cavalry button, second one from this site and this one is In much much better shape. It’s a huge score for a little farm field in Kansas, it was Indian territory right up to the civil war and no skirmishes anywhere in the area that I know of makes civil war military artifacts extremely rare… still hoping to score a mine ball.
So I intend to do some googling but I’ll ask here too, how do you clean a guilted button? I assume an Andres pencil is too rough? I’d love to get as much detail as I can and to read the back but I don’t want to take off the remaining gold color. Have it soaking in filtered water right now, not quite distilled but it’s what I’ve got available.
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Nice!!! Congrats!!!

 

[Gare]

AMAZING FIND Thank you for sharing and your pictures were great also