ID Help: Coin? Token? Button? Era?

CollectorBob

What is this thing? Civil War Button of some sort? It's about the size of a Nickel. What are those Asian characters? Any help wiht IDing this will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

ajaan

Many Civil War buttons had Treble Gilt on them. It looks like the eye of the button was removed on yours. The Chinese characters are another story. Maybe someone can translate them.

sumnom

What does "treble gilt" mean? The character to the right can mean "trust" or "believe." It can also mean "letter" as a letter you might send in the mail. I can't figure out what the other one is. It may well be "send" but i am not sure. Could this be some sort of postal token? Maybe a button is a better guess?

sumnom

I just googled "treble gilt" and found it to be common on nineteenth century buttons of all sorts. Does it mean the button has three layers of gilt? The Chinese characters may refer to the name of the company that made the button.

JoesMaName

For some reason the movie The Last Samurai comes to mind...

Could it be a button from a uniform of the newly westernized Japanese army??

sumnom

I am sorry that you had to think about "The Last Samurai."

It could be a Japanese button or perhaps a button made by a Chinese company in the US. It would be nice to know something about the lion-thing on the front of the button. That might be an important clue...

CollectorBob

Wow! You are guys are just awesome. What a wealth of knowledge here.

sumnom

A wealth of guesses...