mystery button

[creade]

I dug up the button yesterday. At first I thought it was copper. Then I cleaned it and I saw that the metal was silver. Its not magnetic and l thought it was broken on top, but I'm not sure. It seems it was made that way.

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

Your Colonial-era 1-piece "flatbutton" is made of a metal called White-Tombac, not silver. White-Tombac is an alloy of approximately 90% copper, 8% zinc, and 2% arsenic. The presence of arsenic in the alloy made the alloy's color silver-ish. See the third button (and info) in the chart attached below.

And yes, your button's edge was broken off, not "made that way." White-Tombac is a more brittle metal than pure copper or brass... so we diggers sometimes find ones that are broken, like yours.