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Here is a useful page for you to bookmark re. dating early buttons
lordmarcovan
Posts: 43,215 ✭✭✭✭✭
If you find a lot of 19th century and earlier buttons, here is a list of American button manufacturers and the dates they operated.
Most of this list seems to echo what's in the classic Albert book, but everything they say about the Tice book is true- it is excellent.
Some of those buttons you dig might be older than you thought.
This list is only companies that produced American military buttons, but since the same companies often produced civilian buttons too, the list can help you date some of those as well.
The backmark dating index is the single page in Albert's that I use the most. And here is the same info for free. Ain't the web grand.
Of course, it is still worth owning the Albert and Tice books and lots of other relic books if you hunt many older sites. Sometimes stuff like turn-of-the-century Sears catalogs (available in modern reprints) can be helpful, too. I mean, what if you found an adjustment screw off of an 1882-patented hand saw, but you didn't have the rest of the saw so you were mystified? Then you see it, saw and all, in some old catalog.
Finding that magic info link doesn't happen all the time, or even very often, but with the help of the Internet and a good book collection on random topics, you can learn to date all sorts of odds and ends and "whatzits".
Another example? I found this weird little brass doodad, once. Tubular. Had no idea. Threw it in my junk drawer.
Years later, I was looking through a copy of some book on Revolutionary War soldiers and their equipment, and lo and behold- there was my doodad in the picture, holding the ramrod on a Revolutionary War era Brown Bess musket!
And of course there is the story of my "Mysterious Ming Medallion", which sat unrecognized in my junk drawer for decade. But you all know that story.
I think I posted a link to a webpage on vintage shotgun shells, once, too.
It would be cool to collect all these bookmarks in one place. Maybe I should work on that, huh?
Most of this list seems to echo what's in the classic Albert book, but everything they say about the Tice book is true- it is excellent.
Some of those buttons you dig might be older than you thought.
This list is only companies that produced American military buttons, but since the same companies often produced civilian buttons too, the list can help you date some of those as well.
The backmark dating index is the single page in Albert's that I use the most. And here is the same info for free. Ain't the web grand.
Of course, it is still worth owning the Albert and Tice books and lots of other relic books if you hunt many older sites. Sometimes stuff like turn-of-the-century Sears catalogs (available in modern reprints) can be helpful, too. I mean, what if you found an adjustment screw off of an 1882-patented hand saw, but you didn't have the rest of the saw so you were mystified? Then you see it, saw and all, in some old catalog.
Finding that magic info link doesn't happen all the time, or even very often, but with the help of the Internet and a good book collection on random topics, you can learn to date all sorts of odds and ends and "whatzits".
Another example? I found this weird little brass doodad, once. Tubular. Had no idea. Threw it in my junk drawer.
Years later, I was looking through a copy of some book on Revolutionary War soldiers and their equipment, and lo and behold- there was my doodad in the picture, holding the ramrod on a Revolutionary War era Brown Bess musket!
And of course there is the story of my "Mysterious Ming Medallion", which sat unrecognized in my junk drawer for decade. But you all know that story.
I think I posted a link to a webpage on vintage shotgun shells, once, too.
It would be cool to collect all these bookmarks in one place. Maybe I should work on that, huh?
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