Buttons?

[KimK1998]

Good evening,  I have done a lot of genealogy research for our family tree, and about 9 years ago my husband found a civil war belt plate for the Confederacy.  In doing my genealogy tree I was able to find out which of my husband's ancestors it belonged to.  Today I was going thru some old jewelry that belonged to my husbands parents and found these buttons, there are 2 large ones about the size of a quarter and 8 smaller ones about teh size of a dime.  I have a sneaking suspicion that they somehow tie back to this belt buckle but I am not sure.  There were also some 2 intriguing items that look like cufflinks.  I happened upon this site and see that many of you are very knowledgeable in civil war memorabilia and had hoped someone here could tell me some more about either or both these items.  Since my husband has passed I cannot get any info from him and I want to pass these items on to our children.  All our 4 kids enlisted, and these items would mean very much to them.  Thank you for reading and looking! 

 

Thank you,

KimK1998

 

 

 

[rhino]

I don't have any knowledge about it but they sure looks great

[Siamundo]

Hello and welcome to the forum. I will take a stab at your buttons although buttons are not my forte. Based on the photos, the buttons appear to be of a more modern manufacture. The shank, or that square hole on the back that the thread goes through to attach the button to a garment, is a design I tend to think of as "fashion" buttons or commercially made buttons. Older vintage military buttons-i.e. WW II, WW I, Civil War etc often have a metal loop shank on the rear. Many older military buttons often have the manufacturer's name on the back of the button as well whereas these are blank. As they are so shiny and new looking these may have been more recently made-perhaps for a re-enactor uniform? This is just my opinion though, hopefully others more knowledgeable on the subject will chime in.

[KimK1998]

38 minutes ago, Siamundo said:

Hello and welcome to the forum. I will take a stab at your buttons although buttons are not my forte. Based on the photos, the buttons appear to be of a more modern manufacture. The shank, or that square hole on the back that the thread goes through to attach the button to a garment, is a design I tend to think of as "fashion" buttons or commercially made buttons. Older vintage military buttons-i.e. WW II, WW I, Civil War etc often have a metal loop shank on the rear. Many older military buttons often have the manufacturer's name on the back of the button as well whereas these are blank. As they are so shiny and new looking these may have been more recently made-perhaps for a re-enactor uniform? This is just my opinion though, hopefully others more knowledgeable on the subject will chime in.

Thanks for replying, what you say makes sense for the era, and I wondered if they were knock-offs.  THey feel pretty light to be brass and quite shiny.  But I am def not knowledgeable about these things.  Now the other" cuff links" looking things look real as well and the tooling seems to be more era correct, I just do not know what they are.

[AustinO]

Hi Kim, sorry to say your buttons and clasps are fashion pieces and not military.  Would love to see photos of the belt buckle your husband found.  Original Confederate belt buckles are exceedingly rare.

[KimK1998]

12 hours ago, AustinO said:

Hi Kim, sorry to say your buttons and clasps are fashion pieces and not military.  Would love to see photos of the belt buckle your husband found.  Original Confederate belt buckles are exceedingly rare.

Thank you for replying, I kinda figured the buttons might be "knock offs" they were so shiny and light weight.  But the other clasps confused me as the tooling on the back seemed to perhaps be correct for the era.  Here is the belt buckle.  With no one ion my husband's family is around any longer to answer questions I have had to seek out my own info.  I showed this to a guy I had gone to with some other antique stuff and he was very informative with the info.  He gave me enough to find the ancestor that I am 99.9% sure belonged to him.  I also found a 1940's era USO pin.  Among other things, I also found my husbands dads military records that show he had 3 bronze stars, (I do not have those wish I did) - his grandfathers military records and letters and several pages of a journal when he was in France during the war, and letters from 1920 to his grandfather while in France.  I really need to get these scanned and saved as the pages are so frail.  

[AustinO]

Hi Kim, your belt plate is the standard model 1851 Federal (Union) plate, used by both sides during the war.  Basis the bright finish on yours, I suspect it is a reproduction versus an original as it does not exhibit the dull patina one would expect after 150+ years.