1812 Artillery Button, KGIII, Pewter Knee buckle and more.

OutdoorAdv

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I was able to get out yesterday and today for a few hours each day at a couple sites. Yesterday I turned up a nice pewter knee buckle, a tiny forked tongue buckle, a 3 ringer and some pottery. Today I was able to get into a site where the grass had been a bit tall and I found a mess of cool buttons and a KGIII with some nice patina on it. My favorite find by far, from both days, was the War of 1812 1st Regiment Artillery button. (Alberts AY36 1813-14 20mm blank backmark). Prior to today, all my military buttons had been General Service or Infantry ranging from WWII, WWI, CW and War of 1812. So to get an Artillery button and an OLD one at that, was a great way to end the year.

I had just dug a nice silver washed flat button with some wheat ears on it and a couple feet away I got this whisper. I popped the plug and located the flat button... just like every other flat button I gave it a quick wipe on my pants to see if there was a design before putting it in a canister. I wiped this one and saw some loops on it and thought there was a floral pattern. Another wipe and I couldn't believe what I was seeing... a script A with a circle and a 1 under it. Unfortunately the dirt was caked on like concrete so there was no more field cleaning for it. I was going to pick at it, but it was too hard, so I ended up doing a cold peroxide soak with some light q-tip and tooth picking for a couple hours. I am thrilled with the results.

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A couple posts ago I decided to do some animated gifs for my posts. So here is the Artillery button 1) as dug 2) halfway through peroxide 3) complete

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Here is everything from my last couple hunts. There is a cool marked pipe stem and I glued a bit of a bowl back together.

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This KG was a huge surprise to hear and see. Oddly I mostly have KGII coppers and this is only my second KGIII. Although its bent and worn, this one has the best patina out of all of them. I believe its 1775 or 1776. Its tough to tell because the date is a little off and you can only see the tops of the letters.

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This complete pewter knee buckle was from yesterdays hunt. It was very brittle, so I packed it in dirt until I got home, then I sealed it with a few coats of Elmers last night. I've dug lots of pewter shoe and knee buckle fragments, but this is my first complete pewter frame.

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This tiny buckle was about a foot from the pewter knee buckle. Its very small and has a forked tongue on it.

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These next two buttons were from today's hunt. Both were feet from the Artillery button and I was killing it on marked flat buttons. The one with the wheat ears and the oval center is very interesting. It seems like it was made to perhaps have something engraved in the center?

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And some more pictures of the last two days.

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While I didn't get any metal detecting stuff for Christmas, I did come up with a scheme to perhaps get a little more field time with my detector, while still getting the chores done around the house. Since I cant be in two places at once, I decided it was time to get a robot to do some of my busy work, while I head out with my detector to do the dirty work. So, I bought myself a iRobot Roomba for Christmas and so far, it has vacuumed the entire downstairs, 3 bedrooms and a hallway... all while I was detecting... and the lady is pleased with all the chores "I'm" doing around the house. :headbang:

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I hope everyone had a great Christmas :occasion14: I'm going to try and get out for a couple more hours this week, so I'll post if anything cool turns up... if not, Happy New Year everyone.
 

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OutdoorAdv

OutdoorAdv

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This is the only picture I have on hand of my script A buttons Brad. They are not so crisp as yours, possibly from wear, possibly from corrosion.
View attachment 1395363

Since this picture, I dug two more one piece Eagle artillery. One was another like the two top ones. The other was this one. I wish it was in a little better shape.
View attachment 1395364

Very nice Steve! Thanks for posting those. I hadn't paid too much attention to the script 1812 buttons because I never thought I'd dig one. ha So its nice to see some other examples and it sure looks like the soil was kind to mine. I have always wanted to dig one of those artillery cannon buttons like you have. Hopefully one day I wipe a flat button and see one of them.
 

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OutdoorAdv

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Very well done as usual Brad. That button is killer, and the .gif is very cool.

Best of luck to you!

Thanks a ton Tom! I'll be sure to make some more of them. I bet some iron before and after electrolysis would make a cool gif. Good luck to you as well man.

Nice haul.
The small buckle is another Knee Buckle, although there is a camp of people that think they maybe boot buckles.

Thanks man! It sure is tiny. I was looking at the whitehead book (pdf) last night. I could totally see it being a smaller knee buckle or boot buckle. Seems that shoe and stock buckles are pretty easy to ID... and the typical knee buckles are easy as well... then you have hat, boot and garter buckles that become a bit of a grey area. Hat buckles and knee buckles look nearly the same as do boot and garter. haha
 

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That silver plated designed one sure would have got my attention coming out of dirt, but easy to take considering the other finds.

Pretty safe to say the halfpenny is 1775.
 

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OutdoorAdv

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That silver plated designed one sure would have got my attention coming out of dirt, but easy to take considering the other finds.

Pretty safe to say the halfpenny is 1775.

Thanks man! I shined a light on it last night from every angle possible just hoping something would be on that middle oval. haha I did clean it with aluminum jelly before posting pictures, but it had a lot of silver on it right out of the ground. I was pretty excited to clean it up.

dirty silver plate button.jpg

I was hoping you'd chime in here. Thanks for the date on that halfpenny. It does look more like the top of a 5 on that date. I noticed this morning that the G appears to have a + on it. I also noticed the bust looked a bit fuzzy. I don't know much about these, but could it be a counterfeit be chance?

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Steve in PA

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Brad, I've dug one of those tiny buckles and was told by Rev War expert that they are breeches buckles, which I take to be underwear buckles. I have a hard time believing that they are knee buckles. You can see how small this one is compared to the blow hole button and the .69 cal. musket ball.
 

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joeyfresh

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That silver plated designed one sure would have got my attention coming out of dirt, but easy to take considering the other finds
.

I was thinking the exact same thing!

Another great outing by B-rad. The artillery button an awesome find and your cold peroxide cleaning method is one I'm gonna try.
 

Bill D. (VA)

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Another great outing Brad, especially with that button, but it seems to me your best find was that robot vacuum. Being the designated cleaning person for my household too, it looks like that piece of technology just might do the trick for me.
 

DownNDirty

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Congrats on finding the Artillery button-the cold peroxide technique is really working well for you. Great job of knowing when to stop cleaning it-I almost always over-clean and usually regret it. The KGIII is a nice one, and I think the pattern on the second flat button is interesting-wonder what is up with the sets of six I's?
 

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Brad, I've dug one of those tiny buckles and was told by Rev War expert that they are breeches buckles, which I take to be underwear buckles. I have a hard time believing that they are knee buckles. You can see how small this one is compared to the blow hole button and the .69 cal. musket ball.

I've dug a couple of those too, both pretty decorative. I was wondering what they were used for also.
 

DownNDirty

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Thanks man! I shined a light on it last night from every angle possible just hoping something would be on that middle oval. haha I did clean it with aluminum jelly before posting pictures, but it had a lot of silver on it right out of the ground. I was pretty excited to clean it up.

View attachment 1395386

I was hoping you'd chime in here. Thanks for the date on that halfpenny. It does look more like the top of a 5 on that date. I noticed this morning that the G appears to have a + on it. I also noticed the bust looked a bit fuzzy. I don't know much about these, but could it be a counterfeit be chance?

View attachment 1395387

Brad, I was thinking it had a counterfeit look to it-the bust just looks a little "different."
 

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Brad, I've dug one of those tiny buckles and was told by Rev War expert that they are breeches buckles, which I take to be underwear buckles. I have a hard time believing that they are knee buckles. You can see how small this one is compared to the blow hole button and the .69 cal. musket ball.

I wish there was a reference to point out just what all these buckles were specifically used for and where on the clothing. I actually didn't even know they had underwear buckles. I just figured it was buttoned. The Whitehead reference http://www.reenactor.ru/ARH/PDF/Whitehead.pdf didn't list breeches buckles, but I might have just missed it when I skimmed through. I definitely think your buckle and mine were for the same purpose. On page 112 of the Whitehead book it lists a very similar size and style as "boot or garter buckles". Not saying the Rev War guy is wrong, I just didn't see breeches ones in this Whitehead doc, which has shoe, knee, hat, stock, boot and garter buckles... but no underwear ones.

Whitehead.jpg
 

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I was thinking the exact same thing!

Another great outing by B-rad. The artillery button an awesome find and your cold peroxide cleaning method is one I'm gonna try.

Thanks a ton man! Although many have used the cold peroxide method for ages, Abe is the one who showed me his results and got me interested in it and I'm pretty new at it. So far I used it on a very crusty KGII, the NJ Copper, and this Artillery button (and some IHPs and that CW token from a couple weeks ago) All had great results, but the KGII was so crusty I was amazed at what a long soak did for it. (This was from the cut 8 post at the beginning of the month)

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Another great outing Brad, especially with that button, but it seems to me your best find was that robot vacuum. Being the designated cleaning person for my household too, it looks like that piece of technology just might do the trick for me.

Thanks a ton Bill! The robot was absolutely the best find... although I did get a "look" when I exclaimed that I can now wear shoes in the house and drop crumbs on the floor because I have a robot to clean up after me :laughing7: Now, if they just made one to cut the grass I'd be able to detect all the time. I'll let you know how its doing 6 months from now, but it was reviewed extremely high... so I envision myself being able to detect this summer while "I" vacuum the house. haha
 

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Congrats on finding the Artillery button-the cold peroxide technique is really working well for you. Great job of knowing when to stop cleaning it-I almost always over-clean and usually regret it. The KGIII is a nice one, and I think the pattern on the second flat button is interesting-wonder what is up with the sets of six I's?

Thanks a ton Glenn! That button with the stippling and sets of I's is interesting. It looks like someone randomly made a pattern on it and appears asymmetrical. Its cuff size too, so its pretty small. The A button, the silver wheat button and the sets of I's button call came from a tiny 2 foot area. I had to pull up some weeds and mash down the grass to hear them.

Brad, I was thinking it had a counterfeit look to it-the bust just looks a little "different."

It did to me as well. It looks fuzzy and a bit cartoon like to me. I can say I know nothing about these counterfeit coppers though.
 

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Thanks man! I shined a light on it last night from every angle possible just hoping something would be on that middle oval. haha I did clean it with aluminum jelly before posting pictures, but it had a lot of silver on it right out of the ground. I was pretty excited to clean it up.

View attachment 1395386

I was hoping you'd chime in here. Thanks for the date on that halfpenny. It does look more like the top of a 5 on that date. I noticed this morning that the G appears to have a + on it. I also noticed the bust looked a bit fuzzy. I don't know much about these, but could it be a counterfeit be chance?

View attachment 1395387



Yes looks counterfeit. As for the 1776, there is no genuine British Halfpenny for that year, only Machin's Mills (which it's not) and 1776 British counterfeit which would be a pretty rare one to find, which again it is not.
 

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Z.K.

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Glad to see you're getting out there and finding some great history! Man, you find a lot of cool early 19th century military buttons, and that arty button really is sweet looking. And any KgIII is interesting to me. Not sure where I read this, but I seem to recall something like 80% of them found over here being counterfeit? IP or others please chime in if my synapses are misfiring.

I laughed out loud at the robovac...that's freeing yourself up for detecting Jetsons style! Now I just need to find one robot to thaw out sections of ground for me to work, and one to cart in firewood when I'm gone. :dontknow:
 

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Hi Brad; Awesome finds. I like that Silver Flat Button that has the Fort & Footpath Design on it. I think it was maybe a Civilian Militia piece that shows the different Forts and the footpathss around them. Very Cool. That knee Buckle is a killer sweet find. Way to go. What's the address again ?? Anyways, Happy New Year.!!! PEACE:RONB
 

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Yes looks counterfeit. As for the 1776, there is no genuine British Halfpenny for that year, only Machin's Mills (which it's not) and 1776 counterfeit fits which would be a pretty rare one to find, which again it is not.

Thanks a ton man! I have the "Whitman Encyclopedia of Colonial and Early American Coins", which covers some Machin's Mills, however I was wondering if there were any colonial copper books you'd recommend?? I'd really like to learn more about British\Colonial coppers and their counterfeit counterparts over here in the Americas. That'd be awesome if this was a counterfeit copper... and if so, were there other illegal mints, other than Machin's Mills, producing these here, or were they counterfeited in Great Britain?
 

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Here are the two I found. Not an exact match but pretty close in size I think. Both were found at a late 1700s/early 1800s civilian site.
 

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Steve in PA

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I wish there was a reference to point out just what all these buckles were specifically used for and where on the clothing. I actually didn't even know they had underwear buckles. I just figured it was buttoned. The Whitehead reference http://www.reenactor.ru/ARH/PDF/Whitehead.pdf didn't list breeches buckles, but I might have just missed it when I skimmed through. I definitely think your buckle and mine were for the same purpose. On page 112 of the Whitehead book it lists a very similar size and style as "boot or garter buckles". Not saying the Rev War guy is wrong, I just didn't see breeches ones in this Whitehead doc, which has shoe, knee, hat, stock, boot and garter buckles... but no underwear ones.

View attachment 1395472
Brad,

My definition of "breeches" was probably wrong....
Breeches | Define Breeches at Dictionary.com
 

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I would be lying if I said I was not jealous of that button what a beauty. Congrats on that and the other great finds

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