Full coat or card of GA State Seal buttons?

[Bharpring]

I found these GA State Seal buttons today in a 7'x7' area. A total of 11 coat and 6 cuff. The backmark for all is Waterbury Burton Co. I haven't cleaned them yet because a few of them have a backing cover thing that looks like brass and iron with a thin rope. The thin rope has a some gold thread as well. I have a piece of the thread in the pictures as well. Can anyone tell me if these are from a coat or a card/plaque (before they were worn)? How many buttons would have been on a coat? Should I leave them alone and not clean them since they still have that cover thing on the back? Please advise as to what I should do with these?

 

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[pepperj]

I would be pretty happy digging all those buttons, congrats on the recovery.

 

[jewelerguy]

I don't have a clue, but dang what a find

 

[Tony in SC]

DANG neighbor! That's what I call a haul. What kinda site was it?

 

[fyrffytr1]

You have got to be kidding me! That is an awesome find. Congratulations. A coat would have had either 8 or 14 large buttons and 6 cuffs. You need to go back and find the other three!

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

The only "Staff Officer type" (3-piece) Georgia State Seal button in the Albert button-book with a Waterbury Button Company backmark is post-civil-war, dating from the 1870s into the early 1900s. It is shown as button GA-14B in that book. If you could post a well-focused closeup photo showing the backmark, we might be able to narrow down that date-range for you. The following is just a guess on my part, but the fact that your GA State Seal buttons do not show any trace of goldplating indicates they are from the so-called "Reconstruction" period following the end of the war, when the state was broke and being robbed by its Carpetbaggers-&-Scalawags government.

 

[GaRebel1861]

Very cool find!

 

[Bharpring]

The only "Staff Officer type" (3-piece) Georgia State Seal button in the Albert button-book with a Waterbury Button Company backmark is post-civil-war, dating from the 1870s into the early 1900s. It is shown as button GA-14B in that book. If you could post a well-focused closeup photo showing the backmark, we might be able to narrow down that date-range for you. The following is just a guess on my part, but the fact that your GA State Seal buttons do not show any trace of goldplating indicates they are from the so-called "Reconstruction" period following the end of the war, when the state was broke and being robbed by its Carpetbaggers-&-Scalawags government.

Here are some pictures of the buttons minimally cleaned. 3 of the coat buttons and 1 cuff button I left uncleaned because the backside had some of the coat cloth attached. So I'm not sure about those backmarks? 4 of the coat buttons are Waterbury Scovill Mfc Co backmark. 3 (one of which broke apart) of the coat and 4 of the cuff buttons are Waterbury Button Co. backmark. 1 on the cuff buttons is Columbus MCL Mfc Co. In my initial excitement I miscounted and there are 16 total.

Does anyone know what the approx. date would be for these?

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

The youngest of your Georgia Seal button backmarks is the one saying MC Lilley (Columbus Ohio)... it dates from 1876 into the 1940s.

Another one, saying "SCOVILL MFG. Co" (note the lower-case o in Co) dates from 1870 to 1920. See the photo below, and click two times (separately) for enlargement. it

So, because your Georgia Militia Officer's coat had an 1876-1940s MC Lilley & Co. button on it, the coat was lost or discarded no earlier than 1876, and that might have occurred several decades later.

Info-source for the backmark dates is the book "American Military Button Makers And Dealers; Their Backmarks & Dates" by William F. McGuinn & Bruce S. Bazelon.

 

[Davers]

Civil War era or not Still a sweet find.

 

[BLK HOLE]

As usual CBG provides an awesome response! You have some very nice finds there, congratulations. Would love to know that back story on how/where you found them.

 

[Bharpring]

So the story is that I found these on a permission that was located near downtown Savannah. It was a Church parking lot. I had the permission for almost a year before I started finding buttons and relics. From the research on old maps, I found that the church parking lot previously had 4 old homes on it. M

ost of the houses in this section of Savannah were constructed around 1900, but some of them late 1800s. I assume that the houses that were on the church parking lot were constructed in the late 1800s since I found other items that were period as well as these buttons.


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[A2coins]

Keep digging em

 

[ToddsPoint]

Near a church...all those buttons. Have you ever considered you dug into a burial? Gary

 

[ToddsPoint]

Jeez, I killed this thread didn't I? You should contact the authorities. It's a win-win for you either way. If it's a burial, veterans groups will thank you for finding a vet in an unmarked grave. He will be reinterred in another cemetery and you will be the metal detecting hero. If it's not a burial, you'll have all the buttons. Do the right thing! Gary

 

[Carolina Tom]

Awesome find sir. What a bunch of killer buttons. Wow.

Best of luck to you.

 

[Phishfarmer]

Great finds! Congrats.

 

[Bharpring]

Jeez, I killed this thread didn't I? You should contact the authorities. It's a win-win for you either way. If it's a burial, veterans groups will thank you for finding a vet in an unmarked grave. He will be reinterred in another cemetery and you will be the metal detecting hero. If it's not a burial, you'll have all the buttons. Do the right thing! Gary

The site was a bunch of houses before it was a church. So most likely the buttons were from a vet but not a grave.

 

[Patriot Relics]

Targets like that definitely get the blood pumping, shout out to CBG for the backmark information

 

[etex]

I think a burial would have been far deeper