Identifying military buttons and insignia

Numbered buttons, cap badges, and shoulder titles — units written in brass.

Military metalwork is designed to identify — which makes it a gift to cataloguers. Numbered regimental buttons run through the 19th century; crowned devices, eagles, fouled anchors, and corps badges each narrow nation and period. Crown shapes matter in British material: the monarch changes the crown.

Shoulder titles, collar dogs, and cap badges carry unit names or abbreviations outright. Check the back too: maker's tablets, lug and slider fittings, and construction (die-struck versus restrike casting) separate originals from the busy reproduction market.

Record device, lettering, crown type, and backmark exactly, and research the unit — a militia button in a field often matches a documented muster or camp. These finds link land to named groups of people more directly than almost anything else you'll dig.

From the guide library inside Collectors Catalogues, a free app for cataloguing antiques and finds with honest, museum-grade records.

More on weapons

Identifying arrow and spearheads — Socket or tang, and section.

Identifying axeheads — Stone, bronze, or iron.

Identifying swords and daggers — Blade, guard, and tang.

Arrowhead types by period — Flint barbs to iron bodkins — which arrowhead is in your hand?

Identifying crossbow bolts and quarrels — Short, heavy, square-headed — the crossbow's ammunition.

Identifying sling bullets — Lead almonds, some with messages for the enemy.

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