Lapel button?? Not sure what this is...help please :)

[say-what?!]

Hi, everyone, i'm Jackie. I just discovered this wonderful site, looks like you guys know what you're talking about. I'm trying to identify this item that I found in an old button tin from an estate in Virginia. It has been suggested that it might be a (military?) lapel button. Perhaps it's from the Virginia militia of the 1800s. It measures a tiny bit over 3/4" in diameter and I think it is brass or maybe gilt with engraving filled with enamel. I think the photos will describe this button easier than I can. Can anyone help me out?
THANKS!!

 

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[Bridge End Farm]

wow what a find !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[say-what?!]

wow what a find !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ya think??

 

[Bridge End Farm]

wow what a find !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ya think??

yeap their are others that are expertsin the button area. I am not but I have seen enough of them to think you have a wonderful find

 

[PBK]

An eagle atop a hemisphere appears on certain early to mid New York State Militia buttons, plates, etc..

 

[Red-Coat]

Just tidying up some blasts from the past (including some very ancient ones), largely for the benefit of anyone searching the site for information.

Cool button. It doesn’t help determine if it’s military (I suspect not) but Lucius Paige and Albert L. Lincoln of Boston patented that button with the description “Studs For Wearing-Apparel”:

“In carrying out by invention, I take a common shirt stud or button as constructed with a circular disk or plate holder; “a” united to another disk “by” by a shank or projection “c” and I form said disk or plate holder with a slot “d” extending inward from its circumference towards its shank, and bend one edge of said slit so as to elevate the same a little above the other edge as seen in Figure 1, and in order to enable such raised edge to be inserted in a button hole corresponding in length with that of the slit. My improvement consists in constructing the “back disk holder” of an ordinary shirt stud or button with a slit “d” extending from its circumference to the shank, and having one of its raised with respect to the other substantially as specified.”