possible presidential campaign button??

Mkriegs · Feb 1, 2016

I found this large object at a old homesite that dates to the mid 1800s. On the front it clearly states "the president" after that there is one more word, maybe two. the only letters that are visible are "DO_G..." the D and G are questionable. If its a presidential button the only person i could find that it could be from is Stephen douglas in 1860. The center and back are completely devoid of writing or design. Any thoughts?!

Ron (CA) · Feb 3, 2016

BuckleBoy said:
shame about the water cleaning you did to it, but it is a rare and valuable one. congrats.

Great find -congrats

BB. Not sure what you meant either. Can you elaborate??

CASPER-2 · Feb 3, 2016

Ron (CA) said:
Great find -congrats

BB. Not sure what you meant either. Can you elaborate??

think he got confused with one fever87 posted - which looked cleaned
prob thought it was yours
congrats on the find :thumbsup:

F75PAHUNTER · Feb 3, 2016

Nice GW button

The Rebel · Feb 3, 2016

AMAZING FIND!

JerV3 · Feb 3, 2016

Yeah that's a awesome piece of history there. I'd love to get my coil over one

HH Jer

Mkriegs · Feb 3, 2016

That would make sense. thanks again everyone btw! Also, do you guys believe that this is something that I should get appraised? Im from kentucky and we do not find many artifacts like this around here so i really dont know what to do. Im a poor college student and I certainly would try to hold off selling it but I would like to see if I should take further steps to preserve it, ect..

relic lover · Feb 3, 2016

Well you have basically found the holy grail of metal detecting North America congratulations keep in mind they were in sets of four and typically all held on the coat with a single ribbon. So where there is one there is often more

BuckleBoy · Feb 5, 2016

Mkriegs said:
Yes I didn't think it was anything at first. How would you have cleaned it? And why is the water damaging?

certainly a dry toothpick method would've yielded better results. Check out my post in cleaning and preservation on TNet about cleaning buttons, or one of my articles in WE Treasures magazine on the same topic. Water is a cleaning method, and often not the best one. I don't clean any of my buttons with water anymore. Only toothpick, dry toothbrush, or aluminum jelly if gilded. Pewter often has to be stabilized so it doesn't flake away.

hope this helps,

Buck