✅ SOLVED Help with a button ID (And asking for confirmation on a second)

brianc053

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Jan 27, 2015
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Morris County, NJ
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Hi everyone. I got out detecting with my friend Scolino today at one of his awesome sites (thanks Scolino!), and I found two buttons that I'd like help with please. I'll include a link to a "Today's Finds" post that summarizes the whole hunt at the bottom.

The first button pictured is the one I cannot identify. I've tried to clean it with toothpick and Andre's Pencils, but if I clean it much more the patina will flake away and I'll lose whatever is there.
Can anyone identify the button from the first two pictures please?
I can't make much out on the front (but I'm hoping someone recognizes the image)
On the back there seems to be an "L" and maybe an "I" and "V", but I'm not sure. Livery buttons didn't actually say "LIVERY" did they?

I include the last button picture in hopes that you experts would confirm that this matches the Union Civil War style button. Sadly it's obviously badly damaged (I didn't do it - I swear, I found it like that!). I used some lightly applied Classic Coin Conditioner to darken the Eagle & Crest insignia. It seems to match exactly a button being sold by the Gettysburg Museum.
Agree?

Thanks in advance for your help!
- Brian

Link to full post about today's hunt: https://www.treasurenet.com/threads/great-hunt-today-with-scolino.665092/

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The first is a William Henry Harrison Campaign Button from the presidential campaign of 1840.

The reason it shows a log cabin is pretty amusing too. He was running against Martin Van Buren who tried to portray Harrison as too old for office and one Democratic newspaper wrote: "Give him a barrel of hard cider, and ... a pension of two thousand [dollars] a year ... and ... he will sit the remainder of his days in his log cabin."

Harrison's campaign quickly ran with it and declared that Harrison was the "log cabin and cider candidate" and that Van Buren was an out-of-touch aristocrat. The more common Harrison campaign buttons show the log cabin, but there are others that have a cider barrel, and a few with both. Below are non-dug ones that went up for auction:

Harrison Buttons.jpg


Harrison was really the first president to actively run for office and there are numerous button varieties as well as tokens. I imagine they were handed out at campaign stops and must have been popular to wear since I've dug them at a number of sites.

Great piece of American history there and a cool find!
 

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Upvote 7
Thank you so much Paleomaxx! Excellent ID! And what a cool history lesson too! I love that button even more now.

I've corrected the orientation of the picture to show the log cabin correctly, and marked it "Solved".

Thanks again!
 

Upvote 3
Thank you so much Paleomaxx! Excellent ID! And what a cool history lesson too! I love that button even more now.

I've corrected the orientation of the picture to show the log cabin correctly, and marked it "Solved".

Thanks again!
Great buttons brianc and great ID paleomaxx.Lots of good knowledge there in upstate NY.
 

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