Curious button find

castletonking

Full Member
Jun 20, 2011
245
16
castleton vt.
Primary Interest:
Metal Detecting
Hello all,today I was hunting my field and in addition to the numerous tombacs,dandys and musketballs I found today,I came across this interesting button,though it is very fragile and crumbling I can make out some type of design on it,not sure if its swords,cannons or just a design...the remaining section of the button is approx the size of a modern penny,the body of the button is rather thick,morese than a tombac and the rear shank is much more robust.I live less than a 1/4 mile from fort Warren in Castleton Vt. and 4 miles from the Hubbardton battle field so there was a quite a bit of activity in my area in the revolutionary era.It was found approx 8 inches below the surface and is very very fragile,nearly crumbling when handled.Does anyone have any idea what it may be? thanks PS thats the best enlargement i could get on the picture. sorry
 

Attachments

  • img079.jpg
    img079.jpg
    39.3 KB · Views: 104
Last edited:
Please pardon me if I've misunderstood your post and you already know all of the following:
Your grey button is "crumbly" because it is made of actual pewter ...which contains a lot of Tin. Tombac buttons are made mostly of copper with a small percentage of zinc. Along with those two metals, "White-Tombac" buttons contain a little bit of arsenic (which is a metal), which gives the alloy a silver-ish color. I mention that because many diggers & collectors confuse pewter buttons with White-Tombac, but the latter never gets crumbly ...and in fact usually retains its dull silver-ish sheen ever after two centuries in the ground.

Unfortunately I can't tell whether the corroded design on your pewter button is military or civilian. Perhaps some TreasureNet folks who are more familiar than I am with the emblem-varieties of Colonial era pewter buttons can recognize the cross-like design.
 

Last edited:
Upvote 0

Top Member Reactions

Users who are viewing this thread

Latest Discussions

Back
Top