CSA button help? (UPDATED2: pics + scans)

[gtoast99]

I just got in from detecting, and I'm late for work. So no pics yet.

BUT I just dug what might be a CSA button. Has C.S.A. on the front, block letters, horizontal lines in the letters. The thing that scares me, no backmark. Seems all the ones I saw in my quick online search have been Buckley / Birmingham.

Without a backmark, is mine certainly repro? Or is there a chance it's real? I'll be doing jumpingjacks in my stomach doing work for the next hour, hopefully someone can let me know by then. Post pics when I get back Thanks!

UPDATED with pics. I'm going to also take some scans and see if I can't get some more detail that way, too. Whatcha think?

UPDATED 2: Some scans, which show the lines on the lettering better.

 

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[gtoast99]

Re: CSA button help?

oh, almost forgot, house is 1855. home of a CSA soldier. so it's plausible from a location standpoint.

 

[CC Hunter]

Re: CSA button help?

Yes, there are indeed period CSA buttons without the S. Buckley Birmingham backmark. In fact, as I recall, the blank marked period ones are a bit less common, compared with the more common Superior Quality backmark (as if any CSA buttons can be called such).

Sounds like you might have the real deal. Post up the photos, and we'll see for certain.

CC Hunter

 

[gtoast99]

Re: CSA button help? (UPDATED: pics)

Thanks cc hunter! *fingers crossed* and pics added

 

[CC Hunter]

Re: CSA button help? (UPDATED: pics)

Crossed Fingers Worked!

That sure looks to be the real deal!

CC Hunter

 

[gtoast99]

WooHoo!! I thought it would be weird for a replica to be where I found it. But MD'ing constantly turns up odd things in interesting places, LOL.

Sorry to pick your brain, but what does one look for to tell the real from the fake? I can't tell the difference HAHA

 

[CC Hunter]

Well for starters, your button appears to be the correct shape, letter style, construction, shank, and other features to attribute as a genuine item. Additionally, I've had real ones, freshly dug in my hand on occasion.

Furthermore, your button also has that realistic green patina, showing a century or so of being in the ground.

And your location for the find seems to add up also! Your button find passes the tests with flying colors.

CC Hunter

 

[gtoast99]

Thanks CC! That's *exactly* the kind of detailed answer I was hoping for. I'm so excited!! One of my best find, ever. WOOHOO!!

 

[Bigcypresshunter]

Looks good to me too. Where is CBG?

 

[gtoast99]

Thanks BCH! Nice to have a second opinion. I'm so psyched! LOL

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

BigCypressHunter wrote:
> Where is CBG?

The Cannonball Guy has been pacing the floor, and reading Civil War history books by the light of an oil lamp, ever since Hurricane Emily knocked out electrical power (and Cable Internet access) in the Richmond VA area back on August 27th. Strangely, the storm did more of that kind of damage here than at the Virginia coast.

About Gtoast99's CSA button:

First... enormous caution should be exercised when trying to determine the authenticity of any CSA button which has no backmark.

Also... the original supplier of 2-piece CSA buttons, S. Buckley & Co. of Birmingham England, was still in business during the 1961-65 American Civil War Centennial ...and in 1961 the Buckley Co. manufactured Reproduction CSA buttons with a backmark which is almost-identical to the civil war era Buckley ones. The difference is that the 1961 backmark's lettering has no serifs. You can view photos showing the difference here:
http://www.relicman.com/buttons/zArchiveButtonConfederateA2GenService.htm
Look at the backmark on the first CSA button shown, and on the last CSA button shown on that webpage.

The problem with excavated (dug) CSA buttons -- even one from a house-site where a Confederate Veteran lived -- is is that large quantities of Reproductions of CSA buttons were manufactured for use by Confederate Veterans by the Waterbury Button Co. between the 1870s and the 1920s. (See buttons numbered CS-91, 92, and 93 in the button-book by Alphaeus Albert.) Therefore, I had to do very careful research to be absolutely certain that Gtoast's CSA button wasn't a 120-year-old Waterbury-made reproduction.

Having now done the careful research, I am reasonably certain that he has found an actual pre-1866 CSA button. The key ID-clue is the shape of the serifs on the letters C and S of the 1870s-to-1920s Waterbury reproductions. According to the Albert book, early (pre-1960s) Reproduction CSA buttons' C and S serifs are triangular-shaped. That shape does not match up with the serifs on Gtoast's blank-back-but-obviously-very-old excavated specimen.

The one remaining test for achieving full 100%-certainty that it is a pre-1866 CSA button is to do an extra-precise measurement of its diameter.

 

[gtoast99]

Thanks SO much to CannonBallGuy and CC and BCH for helping me out with this!

CBG, I can't tell you how my heart was beating reading your reply, waiting for the final analysis LOL. I'm stoked that you all think it's real CW vintage. Thanks for explaining the part about the serifs! I don't have calipers, but I'm pretty sure a friend of mine does, and I'll be at his house before the next club meeting in 3 weeks. So I'll get measurements then.

Honestly, I'd be okay with an early repro. But the real thing has me ECSTATIC. Thanks SO much again for everyone's help in this, you guys ROCK