Help with button ID

[gxfricke]

Hello, I'm new to metal detecting and new here!
I just got a Bounty Hunter Pioneer 202 detector and have been trying to learn how to use it in my yard. I spent a couple of hours playing around on Saturday and all I really found were a couple of cool old wheat pennies and this really cool button. The back of the button says, Maher Bros Utica NY. Is there any way to get an idea of how old this button is?

thanks
Gary

 

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[DCMatt]

Post Office Department uniform button. Late 19th to early 20th C. Cool find!

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

You asked how old your Post Office Department button is, and you said its backmark is "Maher Bros. Utica NY." According to the best book on button backmark time-dating, "American Military Button Makers And Dealers; Their Backmarks & Dates" by McGuinn & Bazelon, the Maher Brothers company of Utica NY was a clothing dealer in the 1870s & 1880s. Your button's backmark is an example of what button collectors call a "custom (or customer) backmark" -- meaning, at the customer's request the button manufacturer put the name of the business customer on the button's back, as a form of advertizing. Other examples are Brooks Brothers (clothing dealer) and Hyde & Goodrich, which was a jewelry and silverware business in New Orleans before and during the civil war. Neither of those companies ever manufactured any buttons, they were just sellers of them. (All of the buttons with the Hyde & Goodrich backmark were made the Scovill Manufacturing Company in Waterbury CT.)

Your button is shown as button FD67B in the button book by Alphaeus H. Albert, in the "Federal Departments" section

 

[gxfricke]

That's really awesome! Thank you for taking the time to look that up for me!

 

[gxfricke]

Thank You! That is really cool!