Button identification

[creade]

I dug these button from a very old site. Does anyone recognize the backmark?

 

Amazon Forum Fav 👍

Family Maps of Hinds County, Mississippi, Deluxe Edition - Grab it through Amazon!

[Red-Coat]

Cool buttons. The backmark is L.S. & S, which is for Leavenworth, Spencer and Sperry. I believe the partnership ran from 1835-1849 in Waterbury CT.

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

Red-Coat, the McGuinn-&-Bazelon book on dating buttons by their backmark says LS&S was in business from 1835-39. You said 1835-49. Was that a typo, or are using using a different backmark-dating resource?

 

[Red-Coat]

Red-Coat, the McGuinn-&-Bazelon book on dating buttons by their backmark says LS&S was in business from 1835-39. You said 1835-49. Was that a typo, or are using using a different backmark-dating resource?

Hi CbG. I used the word “believe” advisedly. Your book may well be correct. I was indeed using a different source. Biographical notes from a genealogy website say that Corydon Stillman Sperry “was a partner from 1835 to 1849 with Mark Leavenworth and Willard Spencer in Waterbury CT as LEAVENWORTH, SPENCER & SPERRY, manufacturing gilt, brass, and cloth buttons.”

Those notes could be wrong, or it may be that they stopped making buttons (or using that backmark) at an earlier date... since that wasn't their only product line.

 

[Red-Coat]

PS: I don't know if it's the case here, but from personal experience I often find that dates for a "company" in reputable sources are not always reliable when the item has come from a poorly documented company. It's often the case that the "people" are better documented than the company itself.

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

Red-Coat, thank you for that informative reply.