Colonial Cufflink, Pewter & French Buton

[Bubba65]

Hello All,

I went out for a short hunt on Sunday afternoon to an area that has been good to me for many years. I was digging in the heavy iron area and finding many deep iron nail/spikes like the one in the picture. I was also able to sniff out a few goodies too. The first was the pewter button that was a deep find. About 15 minutes later I dug the second button with design on it. The back never had a shank on it, instead it had four holes on the back, sadly while I was cleaning it the middle of the four holes caved in, but can still see where they were. Sent a pic to Don and he got back to me that it is a French button, so real cool. After some more iron digging, I dug up the two buckle parts laying near each other. Then to finish of the day I dug the cufflink, which I love to dig up and add to the collection. Overall another fun day of digging.

Bubba65

 

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[Darby]

Nice finds! Cool cufflink! Congrats

 

[Evolution]

Cool finds Bubba. I'm always finding pieces of buckles. Very rarely do I find the whole buckle.

 

[Iron Patch]

That button is not likely French, it's a civilian bone back like early military used for officers... circa. 1760-1780 era. I've never dug one in many thousands of buttons, maybe the face which had come apart, but not even sure about that. I did dig a wood back which is the same idea, same approx . age range. Decent find in my books.... just too bad there wasn't a big number on it!

PS: The French also made some that way but unlessyou have another reason to think French, British makes more sense to me. Over the years I haven't seen too many French bone back civilian buttons so that's another reason British seems to be a lot more likely.

 

[VOL1266-X]

Like that button Bubba!! WTG, Q.

 

[The Rebel]

Nice old site ya got there Bubba!

 

[Steve in PA]

Nice finds. Definitely a nice early site there, I find those octagonal cufflinks on my earliest (French & Indian War) sites.

 

[Don in SJ]

That button is not likely French, it's a civilian bone back like early military used for officers... circa. 1760-1780 era. I've never dug one in many thousands of buttons, maybe the face which had come apart, but not even sure about that. I did dig a wood back which is the same idea, same approx . age range. Decent find in my books.... just too bad there wasn't a big number on it!

PS: The French also made some that way but unlessyou have another reason to think French, British makes more sense to me. Over the years I haven't seen too many French bone back civilian buttons so that's another reason British seems to be a lot more likely.

IP, said French based on two similar civilian buttons in Tice's Dating Buttons book, and found no British or others that were as close. So just based on similar backs on two examples in his book.

 

[Bubba65]

That button is not likely French, it's a civilian bone back like early military used for officers... circa. 1760-1780 era. I've never dug one in many thousands of buttons, maybe the face which had come apart, but not even sure about that. I did dig a wood back which is the same idea, same approx . age range. Decent find in my books.... just too bad there wasn't a big number on it!

PS: The French also made some that way but unlessyou have another reason to think French, British makes more sense to me. Over the years I haven't seen too many French bone back civilian buttons so that's another reason British seems to be a lot more likely.

Thanks IP with the information. In my 28 years of detecting I never dug a back like that, so I knew it had a good chance of being older. There was more of the back, but sadly it caved in when I was cleaning it like I said.

 

[Iron Patch]

IP, said French based on two similar civilian buttons in Tice's Dating Buttons book, and found no British or others that were as close. So just based on similar backs on two examples in his book.

It's a pretty uncommon find in general, so when something rarely turns up I guess you could say all bets are off... but I have never seen one turn up in French detecting finds in over a decade. But they don't show up often in British either, so like I said when it's one find who knows.

 

[Iron Patch]

Thanks IP with the information. In my 28 years of detecting I never dug a back like that, so I knew it had a good chance of being older. There was more of the back, but sadly it caved in when I was cleaning it like I said.

It's better not knowing, because if I was to see a back like that in the dirt I would have a huge rush thinking I just hit an early British officer button, because the chances are likely just as good with a bone back. That's what happened with my wood back... could see it was an early two piece type button, and it was dug at a site I had already found about 10 Rev War pewters. I figured it was the big one.... but nope, just a gilt stripes pattern.

 

[Bramblefind]

Awesome finds! I found a section in the button book I have (The Complete Button Book, Albert/Kent) on the wood / bone back buttons. I thought it was interesting so I took some photos of the text -

 

[Bubba65]

Awesome finds! I found a section in the button book I have (The Complete Button Book, Albert/Kent) on the wood / bone back buttons. I thought it was interesting so I took some photos of the text -

Thank You Bramble that was some great reading and very informative indeed