After a Month of Cleaning - Button or Coin ??????????????????

[bobby5]

Listed this a month ago but it needed some cleaning, any Ideas Now? It is the same size as a Clad Dime and weighs 1.8g and about 2/3 the thickness of a dime. One side is still toast.

 

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[bradyboy]

lead seal?
Brady

 

[bobby5]

its made of copper or brass has green patina.

 

[wvplug]

Would be afraid to even guess...

 

[bobby5]

This is the Best Photo I can Get
After hours of searching the Internet, it resembles a Confederate Script C Button

 

[wvplug]

Found this almost immediately. At this link. http://www.relicman.com/buttons/zArchiveButtonConfederateCavalry.htm

 

[wvplug]

I also found this and a couple others you may want to look at here. William Leigh: Confederate States Central Government Buttons

 

[wvplug]

More. Calvary button on top and Engineer Button on the bottom.

 

[HomeGuardDan]

I do not think it is a CS Script C. It certainly is a Script C (old English) which was common on many monograms. I would suspect it was a button, and could be an undocumented CS button, though it seems more likely earlier by construction.

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

Bobby5 sent me a Private Message asking me to comment about his brass 1-piece "flatbutton." He (and others here) may already know some of the following info... I'm posting it for anybody who doesn't already know.

"Rolled-brass" (not solid-cast brass, nor thin machine-stamped sheetbrass) 1-piece flatbuttons with a blank front date from about 1770 to about 1850, depending on the form of shank/loop on its back and how it was attached. Bobby5's flatbutton started life with a plain front, and at some point in time a Jeweler did some fine hand-engraving work on it, inscribing a "lined" Old English letter C. I should mention... although many diggers call it a "script" letter, it isn't that kind. See the terminology in the button-book by Alphaeus H. Albert.

There are two possibilities about the intended purpose of the engraved letter C:
Possibility #1- We know with certainty that wealthy persons purchased "Family-name Initial" buttons (as a version of Livery button) during the time-period of Bobby5's button. Use of an Old-English letter was popular with the public in that time-period. See the photos of a 2-piece example, below. The Ebay seller of that button insisted it was a Confederate Cavalry letter-button... but its maker, the Scovill Manufacturing Company of Waterbury CT never made any Confederate letter-buttons.

Possibility #2- Because Bobby5 found the button in Texas, where the Confederates had great difficulty in getting hold of imported British-made CS Military letter-buttons. So, it is at least "theoretically possible" that a wealthy Confederate cavalry officer paid a jeweler to engrave some flatbuttons with the Old-English letter C, to imitate the unavailable CS Military-issue 2-piece brass ones. Although there is no ON-PAPER historical-document evidence of that being done to flatbuttons, and no such 1-piece brass flatbutton is shown in any of the books on civil war buttons... I've personally owned two flatbuttons which were hand-engraved "II VA" (2nd VA Regiment). Both of them were dug at Petersburg VA where the Confederate 2nd VA served during the siege of that city in 1864-65.

Summary:
Unless Bobby5 found his hand-engraved Old-English C flatbutton at a site where Confederate Cavalry relics have been dug, the button is 99% more likely to be a civilian "Family Initial" button.

 

[bobby5]

Thanks wvplug, HomeGaurdDan and CannonballGuy, I can Quit messing with this thing and Get out and find some Good Stuff.