✅ SOLVED Is this a Continental Navy button?

[HAPPYCAMPER]

Dug this today at a site that would fit the time period in Massachusetts..measures about 5/8s of an inch across,can tell it was covered in gilt at one time

 

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[osage express]

If i am seeing it right it is a Marine button

 

[HAPPYCAMPER]

If i am seeing it right it is a Marine button

OK...not a button person by any means..just saw pic on a website...so would be a Marine button from that time period?

 

[fyrffytr1]

The closest match I can find in Albert's Button Book is Continental Navy. But your button measurement is smaller than the one pictured. I don't know what the abbreviations Avl V2 V3 mean but the measurements associated with them are closer to the 5/8" you gave. If you can give us precise measurements in mm it would really help. And, is your button pewter?

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

Your button shows four important ID-characteristics:
1- Its anchor lacks the "fouled" rope usually seen on US Navy buttons.
2- The anchor's top-bar is curved.
3- The anchor is connected to the inner ring by two loops, not just one loop.
4- It SEEMS to not be made of pewter, but instead looks like brass or bronze.

Those characteristics cause me to think it is a 1790s French Navy Officer button. See the button on the right in the diagram below, from a very-extensive book on French Military buttons (titled "The French Uniform Button) . That button is reported to be made of bronze. The book is viewable online, but it written in French, so you'll need a translator-program to read it. To view the diagram (and info), scroll about 3/4ths of the way down the webpage, here:
http://detektorysci.pl/guziki-napoleonskie.html#bookmark293

It leads me to suspect that the curved-top, no-fouled-rope buttons shown in the Albert book as button NA-2 is an American cast-pewter copy of the bronze French Navy Officer button.

The next buttons in the Albert book, NA-3A and 3B, are listed as "French style" US Navy buttons. However, the exact-same NA-3A button (which is made of brass/bronze) is shown in the "The French Uniform Button" book's section on "Military Naval and Colonial" buttons as being an "Old Regime" French Navy button, dating from 1772 to 1789.

 

[HAPPYCAMPER]

The closest match I can find in Albert's Button Book is Continental Navy. But your button measurement is smaller than the one pictured. I don't know what the abbreviations Avl V2 V3 mean but the measurements associated with them are closer to the 5/8" you gave. If you can give us precise measurements in mm it would really help. And, is your button pewter?

Button measures 16mm and either brass or bronze

 

[HAPPYCAMPER]

Your button shows four important ID-characteristics:
1- Its anchor lacks the "fouled" rope usually seen on US Navy buttons.
2- The anchor's top-bar is curved.
3- The anchor is connected to the inner ring by two loops, not just one loop.
4- It SEEMS to not be made of pewter, but instead looks like brass or bronze.

Those characteristics cause me to think it is a 1790s French Navy Officer button. See the button on the right in the diagram below, from a very-extensive book on French Military buttons (titled "The French Uniform Button) . That button is reported to be made of bronze. The book is viewable online, but it written in French, so you'll need a translator-program to read it. To view the diagram (and info), scroll about 3/4ths of the way down the webpage, here:
http://detektorysci.pl/guziki-napoleonskie.html#bookmark293

It leads me to suspect that the curved-top, no-fouled-rope buttons shown in the Albert book as button NA-2 is an American cast-pewter copy of the bronze French Navy Officer button.

The next buttons in the Albert book, NA-3A and 3B, are listed as "French style" US Navy buttons. However, the exact-same NA-3A button (which is made of brass/bronze) is shown in the "The French Uniform Button" book's section on "Military Naval and Colonial" buttons as being an "Old Regime" French Navy button, dating from 1772 to 1789.

Thank you,very interesting.

 

[Iron Patch]

Looks good to me. Cast pewter, but slightly different than the book shows. I've never seen a French one that wasn't brass, or didn't have a turret shank.

 

[DigIron2]

very nice find

 

[CASPER-2]

Just found one almost identical to yours - mine is pewter with a bronze shank which looks like yours
was told that it US Continental navy - they are rare