UNBELIEVABLE! I Think I Found a War of 1812 Era Infantry Cap Plate!!!

paleomaxx

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Aug 14, 2016
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Had to post this up! I didn't even know what I had found until today, days after I dug it up. I habitually keep any non-ferrous metal I dig at any site even if it's just scraps of brass and zinc. Mostly it's to keep me from having to deal with again it if I revisit the site, but sometimes I find neat little fragments. Nothing like this though!

I was exploring new sites last weekend and the primary foundation ended up being an 1870's to 1890's cellar hole. While it was surrounded by targets, nothing was very old so I decided to explore further. I did a wide sweep away from that foundation and found a square stone formation on the side of a hill. I was hoping this was an older cabin footprint, but I only pulled a single button out of the ground so either detected before, or just a seldom used outbuilding. It had a road leading further down the hill so I followed it and found a definite cellar hole!

The very first signal was a bunch of crumpled up brass sheets. Very thin and the plug was full of them. I grabbed as many as the detector picked up before filling in the hole and continuing. The rest of the foundation produced a couple of large cents and a few odds and ends, but much less than I would have expected. I didn't clean up the finds until yesterday and left them to dry off without tinkering with them. Today, once everything was dry, I decided to try my hand at the brass puzzle. Covered in dirt I couldn't see anything, but once dry there were a few stamped shapes visible so I thought it might be a bucket label or something similar. I was obviously missing pieces and it was a weird shape, so it took a good amount of time to fit it together, but once I did, my jaw dropped:

PXL_20220524_212451737.jpg



I saw the shield first and then the eagle! :hello2: Definitely US military, but I'd never seen anything like it. The only pieces I knew were this thin would be hat plates, but this once was distinctly different. I looked though the Campbell's Military Insignia book and the closest I found were the 1814 patterns:

Plates.jpg


Mine is distinctly shield shaped though and I can't find a match anywhere. These plates are incredibly rare and I can only find a small handful of specimens online to compare mine too. Maybe a period variant of smaller production? The eagle seems to match Figure 11 the closest, but the wing isn't folded over:

Plate-2.jpg


The shield is angled the opposite direction and it has crossed flags around it instead of draped ones too:

PXL_20220524_212457458(1).jpg



So obviously I'm going back to that site to sift for every solitary scrap of brass! :laughing7: I can probably get it a little closer to complete, and I'm sure the top right edge is down there somewhere! I'm also going to grid in the overgrown areas to see if I can't find some buttons or other parts from the uniform. I'm beyond excited, this is an epic relic recovery for me and I can't wait to find out more about it!
 

Upvote 23

ARC

Gold Member
Aug 19, 2014
37,158
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--- "Mostly it's to keep me from having to deal with again it if I revisit the site"

Well that's the benefit of not littering. heh ... :P

And good things can happen in the ole trash pile. :)
 

OP
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paleomaxx

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Aug 14, 2016
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Upstate, NY
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--- "Mostly it's to keep me from having to deal with again it if I revisit the site"

Well that's the benefit of not littering. heh ... :P

And good things can happen in the ole trash pile. :)
Zinc flashing especially will break into a thousand small little fragments and it can be tedious to pull every piece out of the ground, but sometimes I'll find stuff that's masked under a zinc contaminated area. It's not that I leave trash, but more that I have the option to skip a spot like that and work areas that aren't as signal dense, or clean it out. I usually opt to clean them out, but it's not bad form to skip it if you're pressed for time or don't want to have to rummaging around for little pieces. :laughing7:

Yup, obsessively cleaning a spot definitely paid off this time!
 

Florida Finder

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Dec 17, 2020
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Had to post this up! I didn't even know what I had found until today, days after I dug it up. I habitually keep any non-ferrous metal I dig at any site even if it's just scraps of brass and zinc. Mostly it's to keep me from having to deal with again it if I revisit the site, but sometimes I find neat little fragments. Nothing like this though!

I was exploring new sites last weekend and the primary foundation ended up being an 1870's to 1890's cellar hole. While it was surrounded by targets, nothing was very old so I decided to explore further. I did a wide sweep away from that foundation and found a square stone formation on the side of a hill. I was hoping this was an older cabin footprint, but I only pulled a single button out of the ground so either detected before, or just a seldom used outbuilding. It had a road leading further down the hill so I followed it and found a definite cellar hole!

The very first signal was a bunch of crumpled up brass sheets. Very thin and the plug was full of them. I grabbed as many as the detector picked up before filling in the hole and continuing. The rest of the foundation produced a couple of large cents and a few odds and ends, but much less than I would have expected. I didn't clean up the finds until yesterday and left them to dry off without tinkering with them. Today, once everything was dry, I decided to try my hand at the brass puzzle. Covered in dirt I couldn't see anything, but once dry there were a few stamped shapes visible so I thought it might be a bucket label or something similar. I was obviously missing pieces and it was a weird shape, so it took a good amount of time to fit it together, but once I did, my jaw dropped:

View attachment 2028575


I saw the shield first and then the eagle! :hello2: Definitely US military, but I'd never seen anything like it. The only pieces I knew were this thin would be hat plates, but this once was distinctly different. I looked though the Campbell's Military Insignia book and the closest I found were the 1814 patterns:

View attachment 2028576

Mine is distinctly shield shaped though and I can't find a match anywhere. These plates are incredibly rare and I can only find a small handful of specimens online to compare mine too. Maybe a period variant of smaller production? The eagle seems to match Figure 11 the closest, but the wing isn't folded over:

View attachment 2028577

The shield is angled the opposite direction and it has crossed flags around it instead of draped ones too:

View attachment 2028578


So obviously I'm going back to that site to sift for every solitary scrap of brass! :laughing7: I can probably get it a little closer to complete, and I'm sure the top right edge is down there somewhere! I'm also going to grid in the overgrown areas to see if I can't find some buttons or other parts from the uniform. I'm beyond excited, this is an epic relic recovery for me and I can't wait to find out more about it!
Awesome find my friend! Congratulations!
 

Digger RJ

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Aug 24, 2017
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Had to post this up! I didn't even know what I had found until today, days after I dug it up. I habitually keep any non-ferrous metal I dig at any site even if it's just scraps of brass and zinc. Mostly it's to keep me from having to deal with again it if I revisit the site, but sometimes I find neat little fragments. Nothing like this though!

I was exploring new sites last weekend and the primary foundation ended up being an 1870's to 1890's cellar hole. While it was surrounded by targets, nothing was very old so I decided to explore further. I did a wide sweep away from that foundation and found a square stone formation on the side of a hill. I was hoping this was an older cabin footprint, but I only pulled a single button out of the ground so either detected before, or just a seldom used outbuilding. It had a road leading further down the hill so I followed it and found a definite cellar hole!

The very first signal was a bunch of crumpled up brass sheets. Very thin and the plug was full of them. I grabbed as many as the detector picked up before filling in the hole and continuing. The rest of the foundation produced a couple of large cents and a few odds and ends, but much less than I would have expected. I didn't clean up the finds until yesterday and left them to dry off without tinkering with them. Today, once everything was dry, I decided to try my hand at the brass puzzle. Covered in dirt I couldn't see anything, but once dry there were a few stamped shapes visible so I thought it might be a bucket label or something similar. I was obviously missing pieces and it was a weird shape, so it took a good amount of time to fit it together, but once I did, my jaw dropped:

View attachment 2028575


I saw the shield first and then the eagle! :hello2: Definitely US military, but I'd never seen anything like it. The only pieces I knew were this thin would be hat plates, but this once was distinctly different. I looked though the Campbell's Military Insignia book and the closest I found were the 1814 patterns:

View attachment 2028576

Mine is distinctly shield shaped though and I can't find a match anywhere. These plates are incredibly rare and I can only find a small handful of specimens online to compare mine too. Maybe a period variant of smaller production? The eagle seems to match Figure 11 the closest, but the wing isn't folded over:

View attachment 2028577

The shield is angled the opposite direction and it has crossed flags around it instead of draped ones too:

View attachment 2028578


So obviously I'm going back to that site to sift for every solitary scrap of brass! :laughing7: I can probably get it a little closer to complete, and I'm sure the top right edge is down there somewhere! I'm also going to grid in the overgrown areas to see if I can't find some buttons or other parts from the uniform. I'm beyond excited, this is an epic relic recovery for me and I can't wait to find out more about it!
Very Cool!!! Congrats!!!
 

Gare

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Dec 30, 2012
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VERY NICE FINDS !! Thanks for posting and good luck when going back for more of the badge !!
 

TXRandy

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Dec 31, 2013
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looks a lot like #27 in Campbell & Howell. Not the overall shape but the device on it.
 

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paleomaxx

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Aug 14, 2016
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Upstate, NY
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looks a lot like #27 in Campbell & Howell. Not the overall shape but the device on it.

Plate 27.jpg

I saw that too; much closer arrangement of features at the bottom of the plate. The book says it was the same designer of the 1812-1815 insignia and that particular military academy plate was 1815. Maybe the one I found was an 1815 infantry pattern that wasn't widely released. :dontknow:
 

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