Help needed to identify find please :)

[clairechurcher]

We have some family land in Cornwall, UK and found various items (mostly rusty nails and bolts!) a couple of nice buttons and then this that I would really like some help identifying if possible?
I can make out the words 'German Silver' on it But am afraid to do any scrubbing or cleaning in case anything flakes off.
Pictures hopefully attached!

 

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[old digger]

Welcome to tnet!
Almost impossible to distinguish what it used to be. Appears to at one time to be copper with a coat of silver, otherwise that is about it.

 

[Red-Coat]

Yes, welcome to Tnet.

'German Silver' is an alloy of copper, nickel and zinc. It was a designed to resemble silver and could optionally be electro-plated with real silver to further improve the appearance. The name 'German Silver' wasn't used until about 1828 and, if it's electroplated, that wouldn't be the case until after about 1840.

I don't know what it is either. I thought at first it could be an insert plate from an old golf club but the arrangement of holes/fasteners is rather odd.

 

[Digger RJ]

Nice!! Congrats!!

 

[Evan in CA]

I found something like that one time, it was also marked with German Silver and it was from a shoe. So maybe yours is from a shoe also. I just don’t no the size of your object.

 

[clairechurcher]

Thank you for getting back to me

 

[clairechurcher]

Quite possible shoe insert sort of size. Do you know where/how it would be fitted in or on a shoe?

 

[Evan in CA]

The one I found was just a reinforcement in the shoe. It was not something you would see on the shoe like decoration

 

[jewelerguy]

looks like part of a vintage orthotic shoe insert. any time you need help identifying an item it's very helpful to put an common item such as a coin in the pic to show/compare size/scale

 

[Wildcat1750]

Welcome to TNet and an interesting find!

 

[clairechurcher]

Thanks for the tip, will do that in future!

 

[DCMatt]

I found something like that one time, it was also marked with German Silver and it was from a shoe. So maybe yours is from a shoe also. I just don’t no the size of your object.

 

[Evan in CA]

Sweet job DCMatt thanks, that is the one I found years ago. I remember it well because that’s when I learned about German Silver like Red Coat pointed out. I thought I scored big silver lol. You guy have great skill finding this stuff.