Fun game... Date that flat button... And go!!!

relicmagnet

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Feb 25, 2013
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haraldmartin

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Mar 18, 2013
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1724 ? Looks very old!
 

Iron Patch

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The most common era of site to find them here seems about 1770s/80s.
 

Tucson Dan

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Jan 30, 2013
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I just dug a button yesterday that looks exactly like your pic. About the diameter of a penny with the loop still on the back. I was wondering the date of mine too. I found it in Harpers Ferry, WV (private property!)
 

ChuckSC

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Mar 22, 2013
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It's called a Tombac button. It's colonial. They used Arsnic to combine 2 metals, but they were learning that everyone who was making them were dying mysteriously. They stopped making them in the early 1800's
 

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relicmagnet

relicmagnet

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Feb 25, 2013
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It's called a Tombac button. It's colonial. They used Arsnic to combine 2 metals, but they were learning that everyone who was making them were dying mysteriously. They stopped making them in the early 1800's

So I shouldn't put it in my?
 

ChuckSC

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Mar 22, 2013
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The Oxbow Archaeologists have recovered two "tombac" buttons during the course of excavations. Tombac was a brass alloy with a high percentages of zinc and sometimes arsenic. This alloy can range from yellow to aluminum in color. It is often still shiny when excavated and was commonly used for buttons in the eighteenth century, particularly 1770-1800 (see Warren K. Tice, Uniform Buttons of the United States 1776-1865, page 2). These buttons are common on Revolutionary War period sites and have also been found at the Battle of Fallen Timbers battlefield in Ohio
 

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relicmagnet

relicmagnet

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Wow!! Good info thanks, man I will research this thanks again!
 

Iron Patch

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It's called a Tombac button. It's colonial. They used Arsnic to combine 2 metals, but they were learning that everyone who was making them were dying mysteriously. They stopped making them in the early 1800's


The button above is definitely not a tombac.
 

Iron Patch

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I have one just like it. What is it and what vintage do you think it is?


Large Colonial era flat button and probably made of copper. I'd say the most popular time range for them was about 1760-1790.
 

Tucson Dan

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Jan 30, 2013
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Large Colonial era flat button and probably made of copper. I'd say the most popular time range for them was about 1760-1790.

Wow that's great. I found it on private property right up next to a CW battlefield in WV. What's it worth?
 

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