Can someone tell me what kind of button this is???

[GarrettPredator3Massachusetts]

this is a random button i found this past fall by a house that was built in 1785. I dont know anything about it. It has a leafy edge that dorders the punches around.I am puzzled , any help will be appreciated. thanks GarrettMassGuy.

 

[DirtDiggler]

It kinda looks like a button from a pair of old levi's

 

[Neil in West Jersey]

Can you give us a picture of the back? The back of a button will usually tell more than the front will. Also, how big is it? If it is huge it may be a rosette.

 

[GarrettPredator3Massachusetts]

sorry about the scan...cameras still kaputz. the button is 1 and 1/2 inches around.

 

[Neil in West Jersey]

Looking at the shank, I would say it is more likely 20th century. THe button shank appers to be more flat than rounded like early 19th century buttons. I could be wrong tho.

 

[lordmarcovan]

Looks early 19th C. to me, but beyond that, I can't say much. (I too could be wrong).

It's a civilian button, and not military, I can say pretty confidently.

 

[lordmarcovan]

1.5" in diameter is pretty big. That's got me thinkin' more like the 1790s, when rows of large flat buttons on gentlemen's coats were in fashion. By the early 19th century, the buttons generally got a little smaller.

I remember I was detecting at the site of a Rev War era shipyard one time, and dug a really big copper flat button. I thought I had found my first large cent. (At the time, I had not yet dug any large cents or King George coppers). When my "large cent" turned out to be a button, I was mildly disappointed, but it was a neat find, anyway. Then, less than twenty feet away, I got a similar signal, and dug down nine inches to find what I thought was an identical large flat button. THAT one turned out to be the large cent I had been hoping for. It was a Draped Bust cent.