Interesting tombac button (concave) from a new farm site

brianc053

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Hi everyone. My friend SlateBeltDigger invited me to join him earlier this week at a location he had researched, and I just couldn't pass that opportunity up. So I rearranged a few work meetings and met up with him for a few hours yesterday morning at this spot.
The location is now a park but was once a 150-200 acre farm in western New Jersey. The original barn was updated over the decades but the original footprint is visible and preserved as it was long ago, along with some of the surrounding fields. Other areas of the park have been redeveloped into some soccer/football fields, but there's enough of the original land to make the location very interesting.

SlateBeltDigger beat me to the location and was already a quarter-mile across the property when I got there, so I hiked through the tall grass - causing hundreds of grasshoppers to jump away from me as I went. We decided to try the mowed pathways on the fringes of the fields first; they're pretty widely mowed because horses apparently are ridden at this park.

My very first target sounded like a bottle cap in an area SlateBeltDigger had walked through, and I actually asked him "Did you leave a bottle cap behind here?" When he replied "no" I started digging, and that very first target was a tombac button, pictured below.

This tombac is different than any I've seen before (but I'm not thinking it's all that special - just different). It's concave on the front, while most other tombacs I've found are either flat or convex on the front.
Has anyone else found one like this?
The front is rough but the roughness looks intentional; I took a dremmel to the front (gently) and that texture is not corrosion.
Anyway, if you have any thoughts to share (Red-Coat and TheCannonballGuy - I'm looking at you!) about this button I'd love to hear them.

The rest of the hunt was not all that eventful because we were mostly scouting out different areas of the property. The buckle came from near the barn, and when I return to this property I'll be spending more time near there because there were many signals - but I ran out of time and had to head back to work.

Thanks for looking!

- Brian

The park:
kkHbSkv.jpg

The finds:
cYFb7xw.jpg

The tombac - backside:
eoukLxn.jpg P59iwUi.jpg

The tombac - frontside:
yXpqIV0.jpg grnbpVO.jpg
TNn5p2a.jpg
 

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Jeff H

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Nice! I have dug hundreds of tombacs over the years but not a single concave one. Very cool.
 

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brianc053

brianc053

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Nice! I have dug hundreds of tombacs over the years but not a single concave one. Very cool.

Thanks for saying this Jeff. I haven't dug hundreds (maybe 10) but I've looked at hundreds of pictures and I haven't seen one like this.
- Brian
 

Worm-Slicer

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I have a few somewhere I've dug over the years. They are definitely much more rare than a typical-shaped tombac button.
 

paleomaxx

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What you have there is actually half of a button. There was a style in the mid to late 18th century where the shank portion of the button was cast as one piece and then another piece was attached to the front. This is distinct from blowhole buttons as those were brazed together and the holes were needed to allow expanding gasses to escape from between the two halves. This other style was either joined with a much lower temperature solder, or (more likely in my opinion) simply glued together. I find many more without a front half than I do complete (or separate fronts for that matter) which I think may be due to the fact that some had front faces made of organic material like bone, wood, or mother of pearl that has since decomposed in the ground.

PXL_20210812_142417835.jpg

Above is a complete specimen as well as a partial specimen that I recovered at the same site. The metal on the top half of the button is a different alloy than the tombac that makes up the back. I've found one example with a fancy front, but most are plain so these may have been considered more utilitarian as opposed to formal or flashy. They seem to concentrate around 1760's and 1770's sites in my area so I would surmise that is the heyday of this style. You're probably on a decently old spot, so keep swinging around!
 

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brianc053

brianc053

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What you have there is actually half of a button. There was a style in the mid to late 18th century where the shank portion of the button was cast as one piece and then another piece was attached to the front. This is distinct from blowhole buttons as those were brazed together and the holes were needed to allow expanding gasses to escape from between the two halves. This other style was either joined with a much lower temperature solder, or (more likely in my opinion) simply glued together. I find many more without a front half than I do complete (or separate fronts for that matter) which I think may be due to the fact that some had front faces made of organic material like bone, wood, or mother of pearl that has since decomposed in the ground.

View attachment 1942209

Above is a complete specimen as well as a partial specimen that I recovered at the same site. The metal on the top half of the button is a different alloy than the tombac that makes up the back. I've found one example with a fancy front, but most are plain so these may have been considered more utilitarian as opposed to formal or flashy. They seem to concentrate around 1760's and 1770's sites in my area so I would surmise that is the heyday of this style. You're probably on a decently old spot, so keep swinging around!

This is excellent information and i think you're 100% correct! Wow thank you for explaining this to me; I would have never guessed this, but now that you show your example it makes total sense!

I will definitely be going back to that location throughout the rest of 2021. The barn / mowed areas can be searched now, and when the grass dies down (or is flattened by snow) near where that button was found i can do a more thorough search. Can't wait!

- Brian
 

Steve in PA

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Paleomaxx is right, you have the back of a two piece button. While I have found well over a dozen back halves, I have only found one front, and seen one other dug. I believe they are primarily mid 18th C. Here are some more pictures to illustrate the point.
 

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brianc053

brianc053

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Paleomaxx is right, you have the back of a two piece button. While I have found well over a dozen back halves, I have only found one front, and seen one other dug. I believe they are primarily mid 18th C. Here are some more pictures to illustrate the point.

Steve, thank you for this additional information.
Knowing the amazing things you have found (your signature block says it all), and that you've only found around a dozen of these types of tombacs, that tells me that I've found something special - and I might be detecting a potentially great new site! Credit goes to SlateBeltDigger for identifying the location.

Thanks!

- Brian
 

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Steve in PA

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Steve, thank you for this additional information.
Knowing the amazing things you have found (your signature block says it all), and that you've only found eleven (11) of these types of tombacs, that tells me that I've found something special - and I might be detecting a potentially great new site! Credit goes to SlateBeltDigger for identifying the location.

Thanks!

- Brian
Actually I said well over a dozen, not 11 :laughing7: I've never really counted, but probably less than 20. A lot of them have came from sites that saw 1750s French and Indian War activity, which makes me think they were primarily in use around that time.
 

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brianc053

brianc053

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Actually I said well over a dozen, not 11 :laughing7: I've never really counted, but probably less than 20. A lot of them have came from sites that saw 1750s French and Indian War activity, which makes me think they were primarily in use around that time.

Fixed that.
 

Jeff H

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Great info! Of course I had to go and search through my buttons, but still no bottom halves of a two-piece tombac.
 

CRUSADER

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This is excellent information and i think you're 100% correct! Wow thank you for explaining this to me; I would have never guessed this, but now that you show your example it makes total sense!

I will definitely be going back to that location throughout the rest of 2021. The barn / mowed areas can be searched now, and when the grass dies down (or is flattened by snow) near where that button was found i can do a more thorough search. Can't wait!

- Brian
He is 100% correct. Most are never found complete. I have hundreds of examples & less than 1% complete. They are one of the few that break the 2 piece button rule.
 

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brianc053

brianc053

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...They are one of the few that break the 2 piece button rule.

Sorry Crusader - what is the 2 piece button rule? (And thank you all for everything you're teaching me!)

- Brian
 

ajaj

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This is fantastic information; I have learned something today. I’ve dug many, many tombac buttons but never one such as this.

aj
 

West Jersey Detecting

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I've found many concave buttons over the years. Usually it is the back of a two piece button.

Here are a couple. The first photo is slightly concave, although you may not be able to tell. In the second photo, the concave button was found with many blowhole buttons, so it's probably early 1700's or late 1600's.

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CRUSADER

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Sorry Crusader - what is the 2 piece button rule? (And thank you all for everything you're teaching me!)

- Brian
The construction timeline of buttons (or evolution) means that most 2 piece buttons are post 1830. Before this time most buttons are flat 1 piece (not including the shank/loop), but some break this mould, & yours is one of them.
 

SlateBeltDigger

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I'm looking forward to hitting this place up again....but not as much as THAT OTHER PLACE...lol....

When the soy bean falls, my Equinox calls.

Great post and keep them coming-
 

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