✅ SOLVED Is this a tombac button? Thoughts on date/era?

[ToastedWheatie]

I've had my eye on a spot that I research a few years ago, and finally got to today. Home was owned by a doctor in 1875, and the home no longer appears on maps after 1903.
The property has been vacant since.
The area was overgrown and difficult, but I found a cellar hole. I fought some brush to get a few swings to test the dirt, and came up with a spoon and this button in ten minutes ( and some pieces parts that still need cleaning). This leaves me very optimistic for a fall return.

Is this what is called a tombac button?
Additionally, would I be accurate to date this from late 1700s to very early 1800s?
if not, any idea as to the age?

 

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[smokeythecat]

18th century button for sure. Possibly not exactly a tombac, can't tell about the metal, but pretty sure.

 

[Bigcypresshunter]

compare to this chart

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

The "tombac" name which most diggers use for the latter-100s-to-early-1800s greyish-silvery metal buttons is actually White Tombac. In addition to the usual copper and zinc alloy of regular tombac, White Tombac contains a bit of the metal Arsenic, which turns the golden-colored regular tombac to silvery-grey (which when highly polished can look very close to silver. The photos below show a Canada 5-cent coin made of regular tombac, and a Romanian commemorative Vlad Tepes coin made of White Tombac (in this case, highly polished to resemble silver).

Your button has the form of a White Tombac button -- but I've never seen a White Tombac corroded like yours is, scaling and flaking and chalky grey. That kind of corrosion is typical of pewter, so that's what I think you've got. It's still a latter-1700s-to-early-1800s button.

 

[CRUSADER]

Its a spun tombac button, some of these metal mixes where far from perfect, sometimes they do flake.

late 18th C - 1820 - there is no accurate date.

 

[ToastedWheatie]

Thank you guys, that's all I needed to hear. I just wanted to confirm what I had found searching this site and talking to my friend Google.
It certainly has concentric circles in the back that imply that its spun.

I appreciate the time it takes you guys to look at this stuff.

Now if I could just figure out how to date spoons.....lol

 

[Bigcypresshunter]

Its a spun tombac button, some of these metal mixes where far from perfect, sometimes they do flake.

late 18th C - 1820 - there is no accurate date.

Crusader, would that spun tomac be the third button down on this chart (embedded wire eye, lathe finished)?

 

[CRUSADER]

Crusader, would that spun tomac be the third button down on this chart (embedded wire eye, lathe finished)?

Yes.