A button..but what style and age?

[castletonking]

I found this pewter colored button approx 6 inches deep today.It came out of the ground as clean as you see it here,the hoop is broken in the back,but it is attached to the button with a conical holder? It was found on property belonging to a farm house built in 1760,close tot he spot i pulled a 1775 KG III 2 weeks ago. any help would be appreciated...also there are no markings on the button

 

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[Iron Patch]

It's a tombac button and dates to the era of your coppers.

 

[castletonking]

It's a tombac button and dates to the era of your coppers.

awsome thanks

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

The "little cone" at the center of your 1-piece button's back is the result of it being cast and then "turned" or "spun" in a lathe. The back of such buttons often (but not always) show circular spin-marks from the lathing tool.

Technically, your button is called a "White-Tombac" button. Regular Tombac is a metal alloy containing copper and zinc, at a smaller percentage of zinc than is found in brass. (Some Canadian 5-cent coins were made of Tombac.) White-Tombac is the same, except that in addition to the copper and zinc, it also contains a small percentage of Arsenic. The Arsenic makes the metal a silvery-grey color ...which is often mistaken for Pewter, but it's not, because Pewter corrodes differently from White-Tombac. The Aresenic in White-Tombac seems to make the metal resist "organic corrosion." That is why White-Tombac buttons typically come out of the ground looking as smoothly clean as yours did.

 

[castletonking]

The "little cone" at the center of your 1-piece button's back is the result of it being cast and then "turned" or "spun" in a lathe. The back of such buttons often (but not always) show circular spin-marks from the lathing tool.

Technically, your button is called a "White-Tombac" button. Regular Tombac is a metal alloy containing copper and zinc, at a smaller percentage of zinc than is found in brass. (Some Canadian 5-cent coins were made of Tombac.) White-Tombac is the same, except that in addition to the copper and zinc, it also contains a small percentage of Arsenic. The Arsenic makes the metal a silvery-grey color ...which is often mistaken for Pewter, but it's not, because Pewter corrodes differently from White-Tombac. The Aresenic in White-Tombac seems to make the metal resist "organic corrosion." That is why White-Tombac buttons typically come out of the ground looking as smoothly clean as yours did.

what period were white tombac's produced? considering where it was found and the other relics being found in the area can i safely believe it to be from the 1770's..1800 period,as Iron Patch said.

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

Yes, latter-1700s through early-1800s. For what it's worth to know, I dug several of them when I lived in the "Colonial Fredericksburg" area of Virginia ...and enough of them were still being used after the early-1800s to wind up in Confederate winter-camps in that area. Kinda frustrating to get a good signal in a CS winter hut-site and it turns out to be a tombac button (either regulat tombac or White-Tombac).