Eagle on cannon Artillery regt button help

Showtime2385

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Nov 19, 2013
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Returned to a good cellar hole today with the good weather and managed to come out with some keepers. Did a little filming to start a Youtube channel. Fiancee came out on top with this artillery button. Cant seem to find the exact button with these back marks in my book or online so if anyone can help id love to have more info on it. The back marks say "WISHART" above the shank and "NEW YORK" below the shank parallel of each other in a straight line. Thanks for looking and any help.
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Upvote 8
Showtime2385 asked me to comment, but it looks like I've arrived a bit late. Most of what I could tell you about your button has already been said by others. William Leigh's prices for these buttons are an accurate estimate of what yours is worth. Yes, it has a rare variation of Wishart backmark, but unfortunately that doesn't add much to its dollar-value, because very-very-few people collect backmark variations. Still, congratulations on a rare find. :)
 

Thanks CannonballGuy
 

Showtime2385, I had more info to add, but a phonecall made me have to post what I'd written or lose it. Here is the rest of what I was going to say.

As the info posted by Crappies-n-Coins shows, the button is NOT a high-dollar-value Revolutionary War "Continental Army" button... it is from the early-1800s which makes it a US Army button, probably in-service during the War-of-1812.

The reason there are many minor variations is that the US button-making industry was in its infancy. Brass for buttons was scarce because the British were still restricting exports of that metal to the US, to protect the British button-making industry. The post-Revolutionary-War US army was quite small, therefore needing only relatively small quantities of buttons. Orders for new or replacement buttons tended to come years apart. American button die-makers could not yet match the quality of British stamping-dies. The American stamping-dies wore out, or broke, and often it was cheaper and simpler to make a new front-die (and backmark die) when the army finally got around to ordering another batch of buttons. Put simply, in that very-ealy period of American Military button-making, minor variations in the design were the rule, not the exception to the rule. Even the Albert button-book doesn't show all the known minor variations.
 

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Thanks for the info!
 

One of my favorite buttons...the one piece eagle on a cannon. Congrats to your fiancee for an exceptional example of an historic American button :thumbsup:
 

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