✅ SOLVED Three small buckles

[fyrffytr1]

I cleaned these buckles by soaking them in evaporust. Iron comes out black and the square frame on the left in the pictures shows some black which may be remaining rustbut the other two are a silver/grey color. Does any one have an idea on age and use?

 

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[vpnavy]

Until a member pipes in - I pulled these from other TN threads...

Buckles Through The Ages by Chris Marshall

NOTE: Most of the pictures referenced on TN are found within Chris Marshall's WebSite



Old Buckle, Flat Buttons, and Civil War Bullets - Good Weekend (Aug 10, 2015)



Unknown find from 18th Century Homestead (Jun 08, 2008)



Buckle?.. (Sep 25, 2010)



CELLAR HOLE*SILVER COLONIAL KNEE BUCKLE*KG COPPER (Sep 28, 2011)

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[ANTIQUARIAN]

In my opinion, being made of iron, these are most likely all horse harness related.
Date wise, I'd say late 19thc to early 20thc.

Dave

 

[Hawks88]

I agree with Dave.... Nice old buckles. Congrats

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

I agree, all of them are almost certainly horse-harness buckles, especially the first two. More specifically, they are from the heavy harness of a wagon-pulling horse. Note that your second buckle is extra-thick... in order for two thick leather straps to pass through it.

Relic-diggers tend to be surprised at how many such buckles were on a wagon-pulling horse's harness. See the drawing below.

Your first item, the 2"-long rectangular, may not be a buckle. Wagon-pulling horse body-harnesses usually had a "frame" like that as a ring-like connector where three (or four) straps came together. You'll see several places in the drawing where that occurs.

We relic-diggers (which includes me) tend to be surprised when we are told our rusty iron horse-harness buckle is STATISTICALLY unlikely to be from the civil war... because CIVILIANS used MULTI-MILLIONS of horses for pulling wagons, from the Colonial Era all the way into the 1930s. (Photos of American cities in the 1930s show dozens of horse-drawn wagons still being used in the streets.)

 

[fyrffytr1]

Thanks for the replies. If it helps, all three came from a site that is 99% trash free and dates to about 1750-1830. The only modern trash found was shot shell bases. Could these pieces date to that time period?

 

[CRUSADER]

Agreed 19th C horse harness

 

[fyrffytr1]

Thanks for the help. I forgot to mark this one as solved.