How old is this navy button?

[MackDigger]

Found in the attic, not dug.

 

Amazon Forum Fav 👍

A Handbook of Civil War Bullets and Cartridges - Grab it through Amazon!

[pepperj]

This link might help you out for dating the great looking button.
Identifying US Military Uniform Button Backmarks - Age, Type, Design, and Construction

 

[diggummup]

1850-1865... Button Back Marks

 

[creskol]

1870-1890 the best I can tell from McGuinns book on backmarks.

 

[Terry Soloman]

Here is what a dug one looks like!

 

[steelheadwill]

Lacking a Depressed channel, I'm with creskol.
Putting a date on that fat legged eagle is all about the back mark.

 

[MackDigger]

Thanks guys

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

The sideview photo shows your US Navy button's loop is set in a shallow bowl depression, which means what looks like a circular groove around it in the "straight-down" backview photo is actually just the edge of the bowl. In other words, unlike nearly all 19th-Century Scovill backmarks, there is no indented ring/groove around the company name. Your button's backmark dates from the late-1800s onward through the mid-20th-Century until 1962, when Scovill stopped making metal buttons. Here's a photo showing the no-ring(s) "Scovill Mfg/ Co. [dot] Waterbury. [dot]" backmark on a World War One era "black-finish" US Marines button. In May 1941, the button's emblem was changed to show the eagle looking toward ITS right, so yours was made before that year.

 

[Kray Gelder]

The sideview photo shows your US Navy button's loop is set in a shallow bowl depression, which means what looks like a circular groove around it is actually just the edge of the bowl. In other words, unlike nearly all 19th-Century Scovill backmarks, there is no indented ring/groove around the company name. Your button's backmark dates from the late-1800s onward through the mid-20th-Century until 1962, when Scovill stopped making metal buttons. Here's a photo showing the no-ring(s) "Scovill Mfg/ Co. [dot] Waterbury. [dot]" backmark on a World War One era "black-finish" US Marines button. In May 1941, the button's emblem was changed to show the eagle looking toward ITS right, so yours was made before that year.

Salute.

 

[creskol]

The sideview photo shows your US Navy button's loop is set in a shallow bowl depression, which means what looks like a circular groove around it in the "straight-down" backview photos is actually just the edge of the bowl. In other words, unlike nearly all 19th-Century Scovill backmarks, there is no indented ring/groove around the company name. Your button's backmark dates from the late-1800s onward through the mid-20th-Century until 1962, when Scovill stopped making metal buttons. Here's a photo showing the no-ring(s) "Scovill Mfg/ Co. [dot] Waterbury. [dot]" backmark on a World War One era "black-finish" US Marines button. In May 1941, the button's emblem was changed to show the eagle looking toward ITS right, so yours was made before that year.

Thanks Pete .. this is the one I was thinking about when I made my post, and it doesn't have a ring either. But when I put the buttons side-by-side, I can see the difference in the lettering style.

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

Also, there is a large dot before the S in Scovill and another large dot after Waterbury. (I don't mean the little "period" punctuation.) I wish McGuinn and Bazelon had included a photo of that backmark in the backmark-book, because it is VERY common on brass buttons made by Scovill after the year 1900. Especially on US Army "Great Seal" buttons, US Marines buttons, and US Navy buttons.

 

[MackDigger]

So it could be Spanish American war era? I found it in the same place as a large period 45 star American flag dated 1896-1908.

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

Yes, your US Navy button could be from the Spanish-American War era (1898), or it could be from the World War One era, when the Navy got a lot larger, or it could be from the "buildup" to World War Two, when the Navy got even larger. With that particular version of Scovill backmark, there's just no way to be sure when your button was made, except it is late-1800s to 1941. (Remember, I said earlier that it cannot be from after May 1941, when the US Navy changed the direction of the eagle's head on uniform buttons.)

 

[MackDigger]

Thanks!

 

[against the wind]

That is great,, makes me want to go up and check my attic,, well,, maybe tomorrow,,

 

[snaps]

Sorry, but Terry's dug example
is just more attractive, but I'm a dyed-in-the-dirt kinda guy

 

[CivilWarFan]

the button is at best 1880, but I think that it is closer to the 1900 time frame due to the fact the the back mark is surrounded by a single ring of dots. The civil war versions had 2 rings of dots or lines and were also made RDMC or recessed mark in a depressed channel. I am sorry for the bad news, but I am very certain that the button is not civil war and it dates from the late 1800's to the early 1900's.