Back to the old home site circa 1825

[fwcrawford]

My buddy and I went back to the old house today to try to rescue a few more coins from the ground.
we recently had over 2 inches of rain which would make digging easy and prevent the grass from dying where we dug.
We hunted for about 4 1/2 hours and dug many targets that had jumpy ID readings for some reason and they were indeed coins.
We found some good coins which took some patience, but it paid off.
Our finds were:
1 1941 merc dime
3 wheat pennies dated 1916, 1938, 1941
1 V nickel dated 1897
1 Indian head cent dated 1907
1 button was silver plated and one concave button.
None of the buttons have any designs on the front and look pretty old to me.
Any help in possible age of the buttons would be greatly appreciated.
I also found the other coin pictured in the cellar.
It is dated 1990 and looks like some kind of foriegn coin, but not sure where... any ideas?
Thanks for looking,
Felix

 

[TomB]

I turned the button over..Eire 0661 Strang number. Looks like the insides of a piano or a harp. Im sure the button is old but not real sure what it is. Tom

 

[ronaldj2]

The middle button in the pic looks to be the oldest of the three. It could possibly be from the colonial period because of its design. 1990 coin looks Irish but I'm not positive. Nice finds !! Ron

 

[GRAY GHOST]

hi felix. great hunt! that silver dime and all the wheats are sweet. the three flat buttons are oldies too. the one in the center is the oldest i think, being a tombac style from about the 1790's. you can google the 1990 coin and get an answer on it - i think it's irish too. congrats, and hh!

 

[fwcrawford]

Thanks for the help on the buttons.
I found the one pictured at the same site about a year ago and was told it was a colonial era button.
Last year I went up to Gettysburg and saw one identical to it in one of the shops... I think it was the horsesoilder shop.
This one is larger than the ones I found last Sunday and is about as big as a large cent.
I actually thought it was a large cent until I saw the loop on the back, but I wasn't disappointed with this find.
What is your opinion on this one.
The coin was in fact from Ireland and is a 1 pound (punt) coin. The euro coins have replace this one from my research.
Thanks again,
Felix

 

[fwcrawford]

n/t

 

[ksdigger]

n/t

 

[GRAY GHOST]

hi felix. i read in my backmark book - it's got a long history of flatbuttons in it - that the style of having big wide buttons changed about 1790. all of a sudden, gentlemen wanted smaller buttons on their uniforms and clothing, with the button makers making new style buttons averaging about the size of a nickel [about 80% of what i find too] the time period involved makes sense too - good copper and brass were scarce commodities, especially after 1793, when the u.s. mint started making thousands of coppers. nearly all of the first few years of large cents and half cents are british copper. so, i would have to guess at your button here being colonial period or post colonial. it's a nice example too.
felix, they made millions of flat buttons, but a lot of their origins are obscure because only a few had traceable backmarks on them. it's an interesting topic. it seems everybody stamped "superior gilt" or "best warranted" or "best orange colour"...the list goes on and on. great britain actually passed laws to protect the public from inferior made buttons, which apparently happened a lot!
maybe someday we'll be able to figure it all out, and be able to get just one book that explains it all. yeah, almost everytime i dig one, i think "COIN!" until i get it cleaned up. thanks, and hh!

 

[Neil in West Jersey]

Gray Ghost hit the nail on the head with those buttons. The middle tombac one is 1700's- to early 1800's. The one on the left may be tombac as well. You can tell by sweeping the coil over it. It it reads in the pull tab range a bit above nickel it is tombac. If it reads coin, it is copper alloy. You can try cleaning tombacs with aluminum jelly or naval jelly. I found one like it earlier this year and it came out looking like new. I can even see the lathe marks on the back! Check it out!

[attachment 137238 2009_06120008.JPG]

The last one you posted is a one piece flat disc button with an alpha shank. These range from the 1770's to 1800. I am not sure if you noticed, but yours has a nice design on the front. It is a beautiful button!!!

There is a good chance there is some old copper at the site too! Get back there and find it! Go real slow, and dig any "iffy" signals, especially near iron!

 

[fwcrawford]

n/t