🔎 UNIDENTIFIED Newbie to detecting, is this a button?

[DSwish]

I'm new to this forum and only been detecting about 9 months. I found this in my Gma's yard in East Central Kansas. My assumption is that it is a button, but not sure. It has Orange Gilt Colour on the reverse with the heron birds on the front. It is bent. I cannot find any photos that resemble this. Thanks for the assistance.

 

Amazon Forum Fav 👍

DR.ÖTEK Metal Detector, Waterproof Gold Detector, Pinpoint & Terrain Modes, Professional Metal Detector - Grab it through Amazon!

[grasshopper]

The backmark is a dead giveaway that, yes, it is definitely a button with a missing shank.

Most buttons with animals on them are referred to as Sporting Buttons, that may help guide your search. I don't think I've seen one with those kinds of birds before though.

 

[Whynotnow?]

Yep definitely a button, most likely 1820-50's. My understanding is that "Orange Gilt Colour" is a somewhat generic backmark so finding the actual manufacturer could be a challenge. Nice find, its definitely old!

 

[DSwish]

Thank You!! Just can't figure out how or why it ended up where I found it! Anxious to go back; however, there is a lot of junk due to a tornado hitting the town several years back. Will continue researching the button manufacturer.

 

[CRUSADER]

There were millions of types of button in the early to mid-19th C & with that quality back-mark you really won't find out much more. Finding a match to a type I've not seen before will be more than a challenge. Good luck but I won't waste my time trying to find an exact match.

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

The backmark (maker/dealer's marking and/or quality-rating marking) on your brass 1-piece "flatbutton" gives us some clues for the info you are seeking.

First, the backmark is written in raised (not indented) lettering. That characteristic dates a brass flatbutton to being from about 1890 into the 1830s. Indented-lettering backmarks seem to start showing up about 1810. But note, the use of raised lettering in backmarks diminished as that time period progressed. So it's much more likely that your button was made in the early part of the 1790-1830s time range.

We can narrow down "early part" a bit further. The backmark has the British spelling of the word color as colour... so it was made in Britain. The War-of-1812 (1812-15) caused patriotic Americans to boycott British-made products for about 10 years after the end of the war (1815). So, because (as said above) fewer raised-backmark buttons were being made in 1825-35, your button was most likely made sometime between 1790 and 1812, before the war and boycott stopped the import of British-made buttons from 1812-1825-ish.

 

[invent4hir]

Thank You!! Just can't figure out how or why it ended up where I found it! Anxious to go back; however, there is a lot of junk due to a tornado hitting the town several years back. Will continue researching the button manufacturer.

People kept boxes of spare buttons for decades sometimes generations to replace those lost. As far as how it wound up at your grandmother's place, start by asking local history, looking at old maps and atlases, maybe even old deeds to determine when the first settlers arrived and from where. Remember every artifact has a story to tell if we're willing to listen. Good luck!