My Three Short Hunts

[NJ Art]

 I was invited to hunt with a friend on a very large field about 600 acres. I did manage to find a hot spot that yielded the Lincoln and Indian pennies along with the 1801 Draped Bust. Its is the triple error variety. The fertilizer definitely bent this one over but there is enough left to see the triple zero denominator, the missing sprig, and the U. My friend pulled an 1802 Draped 30 yards away in much better shape. My next two hunts were back at the very first field I ever hunted, I got in two short hunts after the heavy rains. This field has given up some of my best old keepers. I was nailing the buttons crawling my coil through the iron using meandering short sweeps (2 to 3 inches) looking for the distinct volume of a nonferrous target, the added moisture helped wake up the dry buttons. The pair of buttons that are glass backed came on two different days. They came in like the smallest piece of lead shot at a 7. I have dug thousands of buttons but never have I found glass backed ones. The buttons are 12MM wide, they have a black patina like the old brass and bronze I have dug from this site. There are two holes inside the one hole ( picture included) They look very old to me. A, "two hole glass backed button". If anyone has any info on this type of glass backed button please update me. The King George is a 1739 it was rather deep and mixed in with iron. The larger copper item was bent in a few directions took some effort to straighten out, it is a brooch. The other thing to note is the bird band. I contacted the site and they gave me a certificate of appreciation. It came from a Great Egret that was released in 2023. Possibly caught and eaten by the Coyotes or Coywolves that are here in South Jersey.  

[NJ Art]

[JCR]

Those are all very nice Old.

[F350Platinum]

That's a great bit of hunting right there NJ! Hopefully there are other hot spots there. Congrats on the rare error coin. 🏆

[1491]

Nicely done!

[Lodge Scent]

Some nice finds there Art! I've never dug a glass blob button like that before. Very cool.

[NJ Art]

1 hour ago, Lodge Scent said:

Some nice finds there Art! I've never dug a glass blob button like that before. Very cool.

Thanks. It is a mind blower to me seeing these (unicorn in the house) glass backed buttons and nothing on the internet as of yet. Hoping someone else has some knowledge about them. I have seven button books, but not even a whisper...

[NJ Art]

On 4/16/2025 at 7:59 AM, Lodge Scent said:

Some nice finds there Art! I've never dug a glass blob button like that before. Very cool.

Thanks. It is a mystery and a surprise that there is not one mentioned in any of the books that I own or online about this button type. Maybe a button history changer, got to love it.

[NJ Art]

Contacted the British Button Society, New Jersey Button Collectors, National Button Society. I was met with skepticism from the British Button Society. It is a small but big button to swallow in the button collecting world. NJ Button Collectors gave me a message that their passing the photos on. No response from National. I did respond back to the British Button Society. They felt it was a form of patina on brass or such. I explained my 50+ years in the glass field and sent a picture at 200X of the exterior of the glass and explained to them what they were looking at. They are now on board that it is glass, but still skeptical that it might be something other than a button. I took pictures down the loop hole and discovered how the glass back was made. It is without doubt glass. Two halves had to be molded first, then hot glassed together. You can see the hot glass work where the two halves oozed together. The molds would indicate mass production, but when and where. With these two buttons being the only examples found so far, the manufacturer must have been short lived, very old (iron looped), or maybe they lost their shirt, no buttons for you... A new category in the button world, "Glass Backed Buttons", I'm truly stoked, historic these little buttons be.