Looking For Educated Guesses

[Mag99004]

So I popped this in a ghost town I've been hunting out west here. It looks to be a clip of some sort? On the face it does have the name of a company including the town name. I photoshopped the town name out since its a relatively unknown site I just started to hunt. But I did research it fairly thoroughly and can't find any record of the company so I don't know what industry they were in. It certainly would have been helpful in identifying what it was. The site only existed in the 19th century so it has to be from about 1850-1900.

If you flattened it out it would be approx. 2 or 2 1/4" long and about 3/8" or 1/2" wide. It was obviously meant to be curved like this, though it is a little twisted.

I'm by no means a horse expert but I have spent a few hundred hours on a horses on weekend trips with friends who own and run a stable business. My first thought was that the size looks about the same width as a cinch (girth) that passes under the barrel of a horse when saddling. Maybe a full encircling tie tack for the worlds slimmest tie =) !

Any thoughts? This one has me scratching my head. But being as I've found two of them now and they identify a business in town as well as the town itself I'm obviously eager to figure it out for collecting purposes.

Thanks ahead of time.

 

[bunker314]

What is it made of?

Bunker

 

[Mag99004]

so my first thought was that it could be some aluminum alloy? Except I don't know when they started using aluminum commercially. If I remember correctly it wasn't easily extracted for commercial use until the LATE 19th century. Then again, I'm no metallurgist. For all I know it could be painfully obvious to the rest of you it isn't aluminum. "It's light" was about as critical as my thinking goes at the moment... =)

 

[Jason in ID]

Has anyone run cattle in the area? It looks an old tag that ranchers would clip onto a cow's ear as a means of identification. I found one of those too and my uncle remembers using them on his grandpa's farm when he was a kid.

 

[Ray-Mo.]

n/t

 

[longbone]

Jason is correct it's an ear tag used mainly on cattle ,just like a pierced ear ring. They were used to hold id tags ,especially for animals sold at auction. The new owner brands the animal with a registered brand and the tags are discarded. A good unusual find .