Domed Tombac button with brass and iron back?

[Jaichim24]

I was wondering if someone could provide a date range for this Tombac button I found recently? Most Tombac's I have found are all made out of Tombac. I have found 1 Tombac that had a brass back, and 1 Tombac with a brass front and tombac back prior to this. I was never able to determine an age or origin of construction for those.

This one has me stumped and it is by far one of the coolest Tombacs I have ever found with the nice flower design on it. It is domed construction, you can see on the back that inside was some iron (maybe from the shank?), and the back must have been made of brass.

Any assistance in providing a date range, style, or any other information about it would be greatly appreciated. Would it have been foreign made?

 

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[BARKER]

Hi; It is a tombac button with a brass backing. It dates from 1760 - 1820. I would put it at the 1820 date range because almost all buttons prior to 1820 were one piece buttons. The 2 piece button did not come into style until about 1820 ok. That means yours is one of the earlier 2 piece buttons that were made. Same is true of the other ones ok. Nice Find. The iron is NOT from the shank. It must have been in contact with something iron like a nail or something like that ok. Good Luck. PEACE:RONB

 

[Silver Searcher]

You do get two piece tombac buttons with iron shanks, they date to the 18thC, but they are usually flat not domed

SS

 

[Jaichim24]

The area I detected this is pretty well saturated with brass 1 piece flat buttons, both raised back mark ones (1790-1820) and the later back marks that are imprinted (1820-1840) All three of the hybrid Tombac/Brass ones I have found came from this area. I wonder if they squeeze somewhere in-between the raised letter backmark and the true Tombac only 1 piece buttons of the 1760-1820 range. Thanks all for your responses.

 

[Iron Patch]

My guess is it's not tombac, it's repousse sheet silver with a wood back... 1760s-80s era.

 

[Jaichim24]

My guess is it's not tombac, it's repousse sheet silver with a wood back... 1760s-80s era.

Interesting, I had to google "repousse sheet silver"... I don't know, the metal really matches up well with the other tombac based buttons I've found. I definitely see what once was probably a brass back to this, I'm still confounded by the iron, it doesn't seem to be proximity iron staining from say an iron nail, but rather iron corrosion at its place of origin.