paleomaxx
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- Aug 14, 2016
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Nope I didn't dig it, but that's part of what makes this such an incredible find. I was heading home from digging and I passed by a local estate sale. Not that I need more stuff around the house, but sometimes it's nice to find examples of things I commonly dig that aren't all encrusted with dirt and rust. 
Anyways I asked if they had any buttons and sure enough they had a huge tin filled with all sorts. I poked through for a bit, but it was mostly modern plastic stuff with a few shell and porcelain mixed in so I passed on that. They asked me if there was something in particular I was looking for and I explained how I dig up brass flat buttons and if I'm luck military eagle buttons. They went inside and came back with a large card sheet filled with WWII eagle buttons. Very cool, but also not what I usually encounter. However there was also one little plastic bag filled with mixed brass 2 and 3 piece buttons.
I spotted a NY staff officer's button so I bought the bag on the spot. It wasn't until I got home and started looking through that I realized what else was in that little bag. For starters a non-dug tombac from the 1700's:
I've never seen one without that steel gray patina and as I suspected the alloy was quite brassy when it's freshly made. There was also a little British-made flat button from the 1820's-1830's. I've seen so many out of the ground with the flaky patina that this one almost doesn't look real. But I guess this is what they looked like when they bought them 200 years ago:
The rest were as I suspected mostly Victorian era buttons with iron backs or more modern backmarks:
Definitely still some cool buttons and I especially like the very early Boy Scouts button with the motto on the front. To my surprise the NY staff officer's button turned out to actually be Civil War era:
Really good shape and the back mark indicates early 1860's. But there was one other in the bag that had the same raised lettering in a groove that I hadn't seen before:
It took quite a bit of digging because a button with an eagle doesn't exactly narrow the search field and I thought the stuff under the eagle were rocks.
Finally I found an example in the Ridgeway archives and I had an Albert number: FL1.
This button is a Florida militia button from between the 1840's and 1850's. The backmark (Horstmann Br's & Allien) was only used from 1853 through 1877 which means this button would have been made sometime in the mid 1850's. Apparently this first militia button is very rare to find, let alone non-dug with a stand-up shank and the original gold gilt! I only found a couple other examples online and the few that were for sale were priced way out of sight (for comparison they rivaled GWI buttons).
It took me awhile to pick my jaw up off the floor and realize I had something truly special. I'll probably never know how this one ended up in New York State, but what an awesome way to end the weekend!
Anyways I asked if they had any buttons and sure enough they had a huge tin filled with all sorts. I poked through for a bit, but it was mostly modern plastic stuff with a few shell and porcelain mixed in so I passed on that. They asked me if there was something in particular I was looking for and I explained how I dig up brass flat buttons and if I'm luck military eagle buttons. They went inside and came back with a large card sheet filled with WWII eagle buttons. Very cool, but also not what I usually encounter. However there was also one little plastic bag filled with mixed brass 2 and 3 piece buttons. I spotted a NY staff officer's button so I bought the bag on the spot. It wasn't until I got home and started looking through that I realized what else was in that little bag. For starters a non-dug tombac from the 1700's:
I've never seen one without that steel gray patina and as I suspected the alloy was quite brassy when it's freshly made. There was also a little British-made flat button from the 1820's-1830's. I've seen so many out of the ground with the flaky patina that this one almost doesn't look real. But I guess this is what they looked like when they bought them 200 years ago:
The rest were as I suspected mostly Victorian era buttons with iron backs or more modern backmarks:
Definitely still some cool buttons and I especially like the very early Boy Scouts button with the motto on the front. To my surprise the NY staff officer's button turned out to actually be Civil War era:
Really good shape and the back mark indicates early 1860's. But there was one other in the bag that had the same raised lettering in a groove that I hadn't seen before:
It took quite a bit of digging because a button with an eagle doesn't exactly narrow the search field and I thought the stuff under the eagle were rocks.
Finally I found an example in the Ridgeway archives and I had an Albert number: FL1. This button is a Florida militia button from between the 1840's and 1850's. The backmark (Horstmann Br's & Allien) was only used from 1853 through 1877 which means this button would have been made sometime in the mid 1850's. Apparently this first militia button is very rare to find, let alone non-dug with a stand-up shank and the original gold gilt! I only found a couple other examples online and the few that were for sale were priced way out of sight (for comparison they rivaled GWI buttons).
It took me awhile to pick my jaw up off the floor and realize I had something truly special. I'll probably never know how this one ended up in New York State, but what an awesome way to end the weekend!
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