✅ SOLVED Eagle button ID needed

[Tigerdude]

I have found 2 eagle buttons at an old site. They are pretty toasted but what puzzles me is that the eagle looks like it was applied, like a tattoo. There is nothing raised on the button, it's smooth. If my picture lines up, the talon clutching the 3 arrows is at the bottom right. Any info would be appreciated.

 

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[Rookster]

Something like this maybe?

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

Tigerdude wrote:
> what puzzles me is that the eagle looks like it was applied, like a tattoo.

Although your 1840s (Young, Smith & Co. NY backmark) US Army Infantry Officer eagle-button's emblem looks "applied, like a tattoo," it wasn't. Its appearance is the result of corrosion.

Explanation:
Your brass button is goldplated. The gold got worn off the highest parts of the raised emblem, exposing the brass underneath the highest parts. Your button clearly was dug from highly acidic soil. The acid ate down the exposed brass, but couldn't affect the gold. That is why the eagle's leg, arrows, and olive-branch leaves look slightly indented, as if they'd been engraved. (Super-enlarge the button's photo and you'll see what I mean.) As a 40+ years civil war relics digger in central Virginia, I've seen other examples of the acid-eaten goldplated button effect, often worse than what is visible on the one you found.

 

[Hawks88]

Nice finds. Congrats

 

[tennessee digger]

I agree with Pete (TheCannonballGuy). He is exactly right.

 

[Tigerdude]

Great info cannonball. Makes perfect sense.