Washington inaugural button -- real? How to tell?

jonathanb

I thought I did pretty well when I snagged this, but now that I have it in hand... well, I don't know what to think.

If this is authentic, it's a Washington "Linked States" inaugural button, Baker-1003A, Cobb 9. The color is a little strange because it's silver-plated copper and some of the silvering has worn off, but the picture is pretty accurate overall. There are about 60 known of this type. Heritage has sold several (on their Americana site), there was a big sale at Stacks in 2003, and there are some other pictures and discussion I found on the web. If anyone wants to read up more on Washington inaugural buttons, the J. Harold Cobb site seems to have the most information online.

My problem is that this is almost too good. The design matches all of the pictures I've found, and the button in hand "feels old", but the condition of this one is much better than most any other one I could find (and way better than some of them). Based strictly on the law of averages, I get nervous about outliers.

But... I'm not an expert, and I don't know who would be an expert. This is a "numismatic item" -- it's listed in Baker, and would be sold by numismatic auction houses -- but it's not exactly something that would get slabbed. How would one go about authenticating something like this?

Any advice from the wisdom of the board?

relayer

Wait for BillJones to chime in

michael

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

highly questionable to me from trhe photos

but i would need to sees it in person to be sure sanything is possible

raycyca

You can contact Heritage and they can help you. Just as a side note, in this spring's Heriatge of political memorabilia you will find a photo of an authentic Washington inaugural button that's up for auction. It was found in an old box of stuff. There are MANY fakes that have been made since it's the first president and he was so popular. This button doesn't look the same as this one in the auction, I don't know what number they are giving it. Ray

PerryHall

I agree with Michael. Also, it looks artificially aged.

jonathanb

OK, I'm not disagreeing with the naysayers (especially since I was the one that raised the question), but what about this piece looks questionable or artificially aged? I can't find anything specific that differs from other pieces that have been described as authentic. I even tried counting the little dots that make up each oval, and they seem to match.

For reference, here is an image of a similar piece (lower grade) from the Cobb site I referenced in the first post:


I can't make a link to an individual graphic within a pdf file, but you you look at page 18 in Cobb's "George Washington Inaugural Buttons and Medalets, 1789-1793", the last piece on that page is a pretty good match colorwise for the greenish color of mine.

Just trying to learn something...

thanks!

jonathan

DeputyPud

The small spots of vertigris lend some credence to the possibility of this being original. If you happen to be going to Baltimore next month, show it around to guys like Mike Ringo, Paul Padgett, Bob Grellman, Doug Bird, etc. I think you might be glad you did.

Regulated

The piece looks good to me, although there are fairly well-made copies floating around (I handled one earlier today). I would want to see it in person, but the grungy look and correct shank (bent, too) make me think you have a real one.

jonathanb

Ah, so you know what the shank is supposed to look like? That's great. I couldn't find a picture of the reverse of these buttons anywhere, and what little description I could find sort of implied that it was supposed to be a rod rather than a loop. Nice to hear that it might be good after all!

I won't be at Baltimore, but I might be able to send this with someone for me. There's a show in Boston the week after that I hope to make, so that's a possibility as well.

Thanks!

jonathan