Revolutionary War button, Delaware, is it real? Recently recovered.

[smokeythecat]

I have only seen them in museums or in pictures online. But now I have one to hold in tiny grimy hands.

Definitely cast metal, I didn't measure it. it's big.

Has the same patina as some of the buttons I have from the Hudson Highlands of New York. The front has been scratched (or rubbed against something), with some of the Pewter? showing through. Lots of small damage, dings, a little warp to it, shank snapped off. the camera gives it a false color, since LED's power the digital microscope, the greys should be black and the black, jet black.. It very dark grey to black, not silverish. I have a New York Volunteers button and it is precisely the same diameter and color. Under 40x magnification it has some mild etching on it, where it looks like the metal has disintegrated, but not horrible, a lot of scratches dings, etc. I checked to see if it was covered in something, like varnish or paint, it has not been coated.

Do you think this is an original one? Got it from a most unusual place., along with a bunch of civilian buttons Rev War to much later. Your thoughts?

 

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[smokeythecat]

Here's a pic of an artillery button. Camera again has the color off a little, but in reality the color is almost identical.

 

[rick67]

Looks like a non-officer Delaware regiment button to me
1st Delaware Regiment | Sons of the Blue Hen & Game to the End!

 

[smokeythecat]

That's what it appears to be. Shank is snapped off. Check this out = got it in a 100 year old enameled tin box of even older buttons, mainly mother of pearl, wood or bone. Go figure. The Delaware Blues fought several places not too far from here, and it's not beyond reason to think somebody found one somewhere and put it in their junk "button box". When my uncle died, I got his box of buttons and half were 19th century, including military buttons, and the other half were pre World War II, except for a Kennedy campaign button.

Once I got a box of field pickups (mainly arrowheads) and in it was a George Washington Inaugural button, the GW with linked states. That was at an auction. I paid $2 for the box, not realizing the GW button was in it.