IMAUDIGGER wrote:
> Date range?
Paleomaxx already said "Suspenders buckle […] many have patent dates stamped into them ranging from 1856 to 1859."
However, I'll add, a relic with a Patent-date on it doesn't mean it was made during that year. A US Patent is in force for 17 years, and objects covered by the Patent are marked with the date (or Patent-number) during those 17 years. After the Patent's protection expires, anybody can manufacture the object without having to pay its inventor a royalty-fee... and, the manufacturer is no longer required to put the (now-expired) patent-marking on the object. When you see the very same object with no Patent-marking on it, that means it was made after the 17-year Patent expired.
Here are some photos showing what I'm talking about. The object is a tent-rope adjuster (which the Patent calls a "tent-slip"), often sold on Ebay as being a civil war Military relic. But as the Patent-marking shows, it wasn't invented until 1880. The unmarked ones were made sometime after the Patent expired in 1897.
