Buttons from site settled around 1700

[colebear]

Button's from site settled around 1700

Hey guys, any help with additional dating or style guide would be appreciated. I'm trying to spend more time on the history and contextual value of items found at the sites I hunt to better tell the story of those who lived there once upon a time so anything that could add to that would be awesome, thanks for looking!

this is the 6th button of this design and size that I have found at this site, any info on this design would be very meaningful to learning about the site though I suspect it is a standard non-descript Colonial design

This is the second of this button I have found at the site, this one being in substantially better shape after cleaning. Silverwash dandy with imprinted pattern

Spread wing eagle on reverse, plain front

Plaque

 

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[duggap]

Joseph Mann made buttons from 1800 to 1843 in Birmingham, England.

 

[colebear]

Thanks Dugga P!

 

[colebear]

I actually went through other button's I had found recently and came up with another one with an eagle on the reverse, something I had never seen until today. Any dating information available from the eagle?

 

[-=METAL=-]

Nice finds, old buttons always get me pumped

 

[button king]

I have the same button it's about 1820 maybe a little-earlier it's a great button

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

According to information in the button book by Alphaeus H. Albert, brass 1-piece flatbuttons with a raised-lettering backmark first appear about 1790 (perhaps a couple of tears earlier), and continued into the 1840s. Ones with indented-lettering backmarks first appear about 1810. A mix of raised and indented lettering in a backmark (as seen on your "Treble Gilt" and "Standard" button) is no earlier than 1810.

The great majority of the brass 1-piece buttons used in America prior to the 1820s were made in Britain and imported into the US from there, because the infant American button-making industry lacked both the technology and the skill to make good-quality ones until the 1820s. The War-Of-1812 (with Britain, which ended in 1815) cut off the supply. For about 10 years after the war's end in 1815, the American public felt much ill-will toward British-made products. Therefore, American button-makers tended to put an American eagle in the backmark to indicate their buttons were US-made. (Of course, it also was faked by some British manufacturers.) Combining all of the stated information in this paragraph, brass 1-piece buttons with an American eagle in the backmark date from the 1820s into the very-early 1840s, when 1-piece buttons fell out of favor with the public due to the advent of inexpensively-priced "ornate" 2-piece buttons.

 

[colebear]

That is awesome info Cannonball Guy! I really appreciate the insight

 

[cw0909]

i remember looking for this one b4, i dont think it has ever been ID, as to co. maker or time frame
here is another one on Tnet
http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/what/105107-unkown-eagle-backmark-button.html#post1109465

yours