Help with a button

Makanudo,
I think that the button may have been of local manufacture for a variety of reasons. The design lacks the consistent level of detail typically found in British service buttons. From the mid-Victorian period on up these buttons were as well detailed as British coins. Take a look at the coat of arms and compare with the attached image. The first and third quarters should look like triple lions, the second quarter should be a rampant lion and the fourth quarter should appear like a harp. I am also concerned over the shape of the crown, which should have a finial at the top.

My guess is that this was locally made and purchased by troops when replacement items were in short supply. A lot of armies have done this including the US army.

I think it is definitely a neat piece of history and a cool find, congratulations!

 

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Thanks Hispanicus!
I can see what you mean regarding detail quality.
The find is still as strange, as finding miniature golden Mayan statue in the hills above Krasnoyarsk(okay I am overdoing it a little...)

 

Fascinating thread! I know that I am late to the discussion but it looks like a blazer button from a prep school. I used to teach in such a school and I can remember the nice brass buttons on the blue blazer jackets that the students wore during formal events.

 

Reviewing old postings a year-and-a-half later, I'll throw out another use of the Garter and its famous/infamous motto HONI SOIT QUI MAL Y PENSE. …and this use for sure doesn't fit with your button! The 38th—42nd Royal Fusiliers, known collectively after WW-I as The Jewish Legion, used the Garter & it's Motto surrounding a Magen David [Shield of David (six-pointed Jewish star)]
with the Hebrew word Tziyon at its center.

Mindful that the button was reportedly found with Roman coins, I am incredulous that the button is anything ancient, let alone even antique. And despite well meaning intentions of some of the other contributors above, I perceive that some are seeing things that clearly aren't there. I'm not sure what they've been smoking?? For instance, someone suggested that the upper left & lower right quadrants of the shield both display triple lions! Give me a break… while the lower right quadrant might represent three lions, the upper left has but two lions at most! And someone suggested that the upper right & lower left quadrants are of two different designs while they are virtually identical. I would go so far as to suggest that those two images are poor efforts at representing two rampant lions both of which are missing a rear leg.

Furthermore, having seen hundreds of various costume jewelry style buttons amongst the hundreds of thousands of foreign coins that we used to process for banks, vending machine companies, telephone companies, amusement parks, toll road entities, cities, etc. mixed into South Florida's monetary system that once was one of the most contaminated in the U.S., I must tell you that most of those button designs weren't even close to anything authentic.

In summation, 20th century clothing manufacturers and their button designers didn't give a rats _ss if the buttons were true to any design. And the Garter Belt & motto were frequently over used & too often abused by far too many. I truly wish you best of luck in your identification search, but keep your feet firmly anchored in the ground.
Respectfully,