9/6/25 Report - A Couple Finds Out of An Old Box: Pewter Regimental Buttons. History and Research. A Ball Bottle. NHC Scene.

 

Written by the Treasureguide for the exclusive use of the Treasure Beaches Report.

Old Box of Miscellaneous Finds Opened Once Again.

I decided to go back and open a box of old finds.  Written on the top of the box was a list of objects - suggesting the contents, but the list was not totally accurate.  In fact only about half the items listed on the top were actually in the box.

The contents included quite a variety, including old pot shards, porcelain and plate shards, shell artifacts, bone tools, and metal detector finds, including a crotal bell, a rusted skeleton key, a Spanish Colonial find, a piece of soldier art, a silver earring, several bags of things, such as a bag of small lead shot, and more.  About the only thing common to the items was that they all were old or older, and none were gold.

I'm going to look at a couple of the item from that box today, but first here is a bottle find and what I know and don't know about it.

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3.5 Inch Tall Ball Bottle.

This bottle is a Ball bottle, but unlike most, which are the familiar canning jars.  This one is small and was only shows the mark of the Ball Brother's Glass Manufacturing Co. on the bottom of the bottle.

This small bottle stopper type bottle is embossed on the neck. 2 1/2 OZ.

The bottle is 3.5 inches tall.

The Ball maker's mark on the bottom is the type that was used from around 1933 to 1960.  The applied top makes me think it is towards the bottom end of that range.

I don't know what product it held.  My best guess would be a product dealing with fruit canning or something related such as pectin, which would be used for canning or jelly/jam production and in relatively small amounts like 2.5 ounces.  

This is the first bottle I've posted for a while.

Any additional information you can provide on this bottle would be appreciated.  I just posted this in my TGbottlebarn.blogspot.com site also.

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You will gain knowledge and skill as you continue in the hobby and as you spend more time with your finds.  

Two items I discovered in tet box shown above are two old British military buttons that were my first old military button finds. I remember being happy when I dug them up.  I remember where they were found and what other things were found around them.  But I didn't know a lot (actually nothing) about them, but I did my research and learned a l little about them, but I still do not know as much as I'd like to know about them, and they've never been expertly cleaned and conserved.  As you'll see, I'm still not exactly sure how I'll go about that, even after decades have elapsed. 'Here they are.

76th and 54th Regiment of Foot Pewter British Buttons.

My research shows that the 54th Regiment button type was used from 1757 to 1881 and the 76th button with the HINDOOSTAN wording from 1807 to 1812, a much smaller range.  The same button type worn by officers, it seems were silver.  (Encyclopedia of British Military Buttons.)

It didn't take me long to identify them after finding them, but for a long time, I found no record of the 54th and 76th regiments being where the buttons were found.  According to what I could find, I thought they were probably from right around 1800.  That was my best guess back then.

After opening the box and getting the buttons out and jumping into the research again, I found the following.  The 54th regiment sailed for North America in 1776, fighting in the War of Independence (1775-83). It returned home in 1781, gaining its county association with West Norfolk the following year.

During the French Revolutionary Wars (1793-1802), it served in Guernsey (1793), Flanders (1794) and the West Indies (1795).

So there are two periods when the 54th was in the West Indies, first, during the War of Independence 1775 -1783, and then again during the French Revolutionary Wars, 1793 - 1802.

I have no way of knowing which of the two period my finds were lost.  From the other items I found, I think the buttons were lost during a battle. There were musket parts shot, and ot her old items all in a small area.  Also included was the button from the 76th regiment.

I found that the 76th Regiment of Foot served in the West Indies from 1834 to 1841, a deployment that lasted approximately seven years.  Their West Indies service was part of a broader pattern of British Army deployments aimed at maintaining imperial presence and stability in the Caribbean during a period of post-Napoleonic restructuring and colonial tension.

I always figured that the cluster of items was from an incident during a battle, perhaps the Battle of Saints or the Battle or the Battle of 

There is a problem though.  The records I've found so far do not coincide.  I've not found evidence of the two regiments being there at the same time.  It is possible that the two buttons were lost at different times.

If they were lost at the same time, it had to be after the 76th was received the honor "Hindoostan" but before the regiment quit using the pewter buttons.  The 76th button shows an elephant and the words "Hindoostan Peninsula" for their efforts in India. 

Here is the solution proposed by Copilot:  Most likely between 1807 and 1815, after the regiment received its “HINDOOSTAN” honor but before pewter fell out of favor for military use.

It looks like I don't yet have a perfect explanation.  There is no overlap between the times I've seen for when the two regiments were there and there are other inconsistencies.

Perhaps members of the regiments were at the site at times other than those I've found, or the items were not lost at the same time but ended up together before found. There are other possibilities too, but I've carried this on long enough, so I'll leave it at that.  I'm left with possibilities but no convincing answer.

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I never did a complete job of cleaning and conserving those buttons.  Pewter can be difficult.  These buttons have a very hard and difficult to separate crust.  Below is a closeup of the 76th regiment button after a few attempts of gentle cleaning.

That beige crust is really stubborn, and old pewter can be easily damaged.

Here is a closeup of the 54th regiment button.  I added an angle of light on this one to show the dirt or corrosion better.

If you look closely, you can see the tough layer and how it is difficult to separate from the surface of the button.  It looks like removing the crust will remove some of the surface so I haven't attacked that.

There are some sites that recommend techniques for cleaning and conserving pewter, however the items they illustrate do not have the same kind of surface corrosion. 

Here are a couple links anyhow.

Experts's Guide: How to clean and seal pewter buttons — Patriot Relicsz

Here is another technique I found online.

Pewter • Wipe with a polishing cloth. • Brush very gently with a high quality brass brush. CAUTION: Some pewter is very soft and may scratch easily. • Use the outer leaf from a head of cabbage, as a polishing cloth, then buff with a soft cloth. • Use Turtle Wax or chrome polish. 

I've decided to go slow.  I'm trying some gentle techniques and see if any of them work well.  I don't want to use electrolysis in this case.

So much for the first items I pulled out of the box, and they are still holding some of their secrets.

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Gold went higher today, as expected.

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Source: nhc.noaa.gov.

This system has decreased a little, and when I ran the ECMWF model again, it showed this one falling apart before it gets to us.  Keep watching.

Surf Chart for the Fort Pierce Area from Surfguru.com.

No big change in the surf forecast.

Good hunting,

Treasureguide@comcast.net