Because I sure don't! I found this last year in a corn field near my house. This area was settled sometime around the 1830s. My dad found a 1834 dime AU50 with his metal detector about 1 mile away from this site. As you can see, someone has tried to drill it a couple times, and it has been man-handled by a plow a couple times as well. Diameter is exactly that of a modern us quarter. On the front, there is a basket, with some kind of grass in it. On the back is wording, the words go around the rim, there is a circle, with words written in lines horizontally. The letters appear to be regular roman alphabet.
Note the diameter and thickness is just like a quarter. Some wording, I can't make it out. The "grass basket" More shots.
Might of been used as one, but it was not it's original purpose. It really sucks that there is all kinds of wording on the back, but the surface of the coin is so corroded, it's impossible to make out.
Not because of the holes. It has the format of one. The circle with wording is how many old buttons look. The wording is typically the company name and/or location they are based. If you look on that side next to the center hole, there is a crater where the shank broke. That's likely why the holes were drilled, to keep using it. Really goes to show how people recycled back in the early days.
Nice idea, but there is a hole right next to the crater. I think someone was drilling it, and when they made another pass, missed, and dented the side. I've seen a lot of holed coins with dents near the holes from someone doing that. People did not have power drills back then.
One part of the lettering appears to read BIHAM or B;HAM. This is a common mark on 19th century buttons from Birmingham, England makers.
That's sound about right, but didn't most buttons have a curve on the rim? The rim is flat on both sides.
The ones that are made of two separate pieces have that extra metal "bezel" to hold it together. Most basic buttons are just a flat piece of metal with a shank attached in the center.
I agree,its a button. The hold in the center is from the rivit that held it to the garment. You can find similar buttons on older jeans and denim jackets.
But why would a button have designs on both sides? Usually the back of a button, the side you never will see, is blank.
I don't think it is a button. It may have been easier to determine what it is if your fingers didn't cover half of it though
