Button I.D. / Information

[rbcumbee74]

Found this button at an early 1800s home site. A lot of flat buttons have came from this site but this is my first time finding a two piece button. Personally I have never a pattern on a button like this before, any insight or information would be much appreciated!

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

Collectors of antique buttons call the version you found a "Fashion" button, because it was manufactured with an ornate design on the front for use on Civilian fancy coats and jackets. Brass 2-piece Fashion buttons have been made ever since the 1830s (they are still being manufactured today)... so, unless they have a readable backmark, they can be difficult to accurately time-date. That being said... although your ornate Fashion button's brass back is badly corroded, it SEEMS to have had a raised-lettering backmark, which would date it to sometime from the 1830s into the 1870s. I should mention, by the mid-1860s nearly all of the metal buttons had an indented-lettering backmark, so yours is "most likely" from the earlier half of the 1830s-to-1870s time range.

 

[rbcumbee74]

Thanks cannonballguy your a great source of information!