New York State Seal Staff Officer Breast Button

[relichound]

My two metal detecting buddies Dave, & I have been detecting a Union encampment site in Virginia since April. To date we have propbably dug close to 200 drops, mostly .54, and .44, but also .58 round shot, .69 and the usual: square nails, rusted iron, and other junk metal odds and ends.
We've been using rakes now in the site because the targets have been becoming few and far between.

On Saturday, October 28, 2006 I detected the site all day, and raked for the first hour-removing 1-3 ichnes of leaves and dirt to further expose potential. I was sore as heck from the raking, but was pleasnlty rewarded for my efforts. I dug 2 more drop .44, 2 drop .54 another general service eagle breast button and my first: a New York Sate Seal Officer Staff breast button. The NY button is probably in the best condition of all the buttons I have dug from this site (11). It retains at least 50% of it's original gilt, has 13 stars around the button with the word EXCELSIOR at the bottom. The backmark reads: "EXTRA QUALITY" with 2 opossing stars on either side with eye shank completely intact. The button is not cracked or dented at all, and I almost passed over the target with my Fisher ID Edge because I had just earlier dug 4-5 bottle caps in a row and when I got the lock on target beep-pinpointing at only 1 inch down-I was suspecting another bottle cap. Rule number ONE: Dig all signals period. All the other buttons except for this button and the eagle I dug the same day are in the best condition that I have seen being dug from these very heavily mineralized Virginia soil. I have attched the wesbsite link below where you can view my pics. Now if I can only recover ALL remaining federal and confederate state seal buttons! Thanks for looking and HH!

Wayne


http://www.cwbullet.org/the-site-tha...28-vt2889.html

[Gypsy Heart]

Very nice Relichound! Thanks for sharing your finds. This button was in great condition . WTG

[Postalrevnant]

Great collection of history. Congratulations.

Postalrevnant