harness decoration

[boondocker]

I think this is from a horses harness. thanks Dean

 

[sscindercoop]

Rosette maybe

 

[johnnyi]

rosette would sure be the logical guess, but this one is real curious. It has a single mounting post in its interior, rather than the u shaped attachment we usually see. Had it been found in Europe I'd almost say it was medieval.

 

[RPG]

Rosette maybe

And a very unique one at that.

 

[johnnyi]

boondocker, I had to bump this up in hopes someone could identify it exactly. It is definately the coolest rosette I've seen come out of the ground. I found a couple really high domed ones on the web which were late 1700's, but nothing as unique and beautiful as your's. Considering you found it in Mass., it could be any pre-1800's age I guess. Anyway, as I forgot to say it earlier, fantastic find!

 

[shaun7]

I found one the other day!

 

[johnnyi]

"I found one the other day!"

Nice find shaun7! Clearly you've got them there, and as well, you have a wider time period from whence they existed.

 

[IronSpike]

"I found one the other day!"

Nice find shaun7! Clearly you've got them there, and as well, you have a wider time period from whence they existed.

Much wider time period. Learned from the link Silver Searcher posted it could date 15th or 16th century:

http://www.ukdfd.co.uk/ukdfddata/showrecords.php?product=18444&cat=169

I agree with you johnnyi that boondocker's rosette is an unusual US dug specimen and appear older than most found. Great find

 

[boondocker]

Again, you guys are the greatest, should I try and clean it up with naval jelly or leave it alone Thanks again for all the great help. Dean

 

[boondocker]

Again, you guys are the greatest, should I try and clean it up with naval jelly or leave it alone Thanks again for all the great help. Dean

Looks fine, leave it as is. Can you see any obvious fixings? Is the pin in the centre broken?

the pin is broken off at the top of the inside of the dome

 

[boondocker]

Again, you guys are the greatest, should I try and clean it up with naval jelly or leave it alone Thanks again for all the great help. Dean

Looks fine, leave it as is. Can you see any obvious fixings? Is the pin in the centre broken?

the pin is broken off at the top of the inside of the dome

thanks, thats fairly unusual, to have just 1 fixing point

the second pic. shows where the pin broke on the inside

 

[BuckleBoy]

I want to also add that I have never seen one of this type recovered in the U.S.

So I was thinking that it was a relic for which we had a very narrow time frame here (i.e. it is the Earliest of "early" for the U.S.) since they are evidently found much more frequently in the UK. In other words, there are many detectorists hunting sites in the New England area that date from the mid to late 1700s--yet none of this style found in the past few years in the states, or posted to this forum. So I would think that the item dates in the 1600s or perhaps very early 1700s, especially coming from such an old state here in the U.S. Cool find.


Regards,



Buckles

 

[allen]

looks like a positive i.d !

 

[traderoftreasures]

Crusader, I respect your opinion, but as you implied, the date you've speculated upon is a guess based on the odds. You consistently find fantastic antiquities on a daily basis in the U.K.. What finds that are made there within the last three hundred years are often considered more "modern", and perhaps of a slighter interest to require individual identifications, where to us the differences may be a little more obviously distinguishable considering the limited numbers of styles that exist here.

At any rate, we find hundreds of bosses or rosettes here in the U.S. on colonial locations. One thing the oldest ones share is some consistency in their dimension and style. It is a fact that some are domed. Never once however, have I found or seen a decoration domed like this one, cast like this one, or decorated like this is. Even a careful search of other harness decoration found in the U.S. won't produce anything that is this dramatically domed, almost to the point of looking like a phalera which of course it is not, (but who's style it may have been based upon).

Again, I have tremendous respect for your opinion, but considering the age of Massachusetts's history and the obvious uniqueness of this find posted here among those who did U.S. antiquities, I hate to see it dismissed as a "classic" 19th century boss without anything of substance to specifically confirm that later dating.

You do get your knickers in a twist (joke)

I wrote this at lunchtime from work (from my head), I was going to add late 1700s but typed quickly & hedged my bets, still could be right. It is a classic shape (domed) for a UK find (I have a few I kept & many I didn't) & does date from the late 1700s - early 1800s. As well as the earlier types that have the holes in the piece (iron rivet types).
What normally dates these to the later period is the external loop fixings which this one doesn't seem to have. I wonder if they either broken off (which I see no sign of) or it was just pinned with the one centre pin??

PS. The playing the odds thing made me laugh. Yes I love to guess, but if you had to remember every picture in every book I have in my Library then you have a better memory than me. Of course I get things wrong, all the time. Takes a lot to remember the amount of things that could be found in UK soil. Takes me long enough to find the right book, so top of the head works for me. When its easy to pull out a book, I do.

no fun without a good guess first. anyone can search and get real answers, true knowledge is on the tip of your tongue or top of your head. i also get over run with so much new daily info that it's hard to hold the old. if a person truly knew it all, they would never need to post anything to be id'd and it would be boring here

 

[johnnyi]

"Maybe a chest stud or furniture decoration."

A longshot perhaps, considering the similarity in shape to known bosses (of a different material and fastener), but worth a try if there is no other known relic to compare to. I think if boondocker gives us an accurate measurement of width, width at the base of the cone, and height, and shaun does the same with the similar (in shape only) object he found that is a confimred early boss, then should they match, we would at least be able to judge the odds a little better to what this may be. Meanwhile, are there good resources over there for chest and furniture studs? I'd assume large high relief ones like this would fall into an earlier period also?

 

[Silver Searcher]

Harness mout(bridal boss)

single fixing hope this helps

Good find by the way as most in the US would seem to have the three fixing points

I realise thes are not the dome shaped as the original posted, but it shows the fixing

SS

 

[Silver Searcher]

Harness mout(bridal boss)

single fixing hope this helps

SS

A little, but the first one, looks like the remains of a loop of copper & not a straight pin (although does count as single). The second has the solder marks where the 'U' shaped fixing came off (similar to the US Rosettes).

PS. The first is post 1750s as it pewter & I think it had an iron back with more fixings.

Doesn't really matter :P how it was attached, they are both single fixing points

 

[Silver Searcher]

Harness mout(bridal boss)

single fixing hope this helps

SS

A little, but the first one, looks like the remains of a loop of copper & not a straight pin (although does count as single). The second has the solder marks where the 'U' shaped fixing came off (similar to the US Rosettes).

PS. The first is post 1750s as it pewter & I think it had an iron back with more fixings.

Doesn't really matter :P how it was attached, they are both single fixing points

It does matter Where is the single fixing point in the second example? Looks to me to be a brass Victorian horse boss with a missing 'U' shaped strap slider (like many US Rosettes).

I can post as many single fixing bosses as you want, but I know it's not a Furniture fitting

 

[shaun7]

Mine is 47mm wide and 15mm high if that helps

 

[IronSpike]

Good point on the size reference That can only be a Barber dime, which has a 17.9 mm diameter.