INCREDIBLE button! HELP to ID

Acuva24

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Cohoes, NY
Anyone out there ever see anything like this before? Found at an 1850 home that has been pounded. It was a jumpy signal on my AT Pro within 15 feet of the house. Looks like it has DNMAGNLM on the left edge with an A just to the left of the head. The right edge is more difficult to read. It could possibly be MWSPGNMC.

Of course when I brushed the dirt aside and saw this face I thought it looked like a Roman coin. I don’t think it’s truly a coin turned button. But a replica of an ancient coin?

Please help uncover this mystery!
 

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You are correct that it is not an actual Roman coin, but rather a button modeled on one. In this case, I'd say the original model for it might well have been a coin of the Imperial usurper Magnentius like those shown here: https://www.wildwinds.com/coins/ric/magnentius/t.html

You can learn more about Magnentius here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnentius As usurpers went, he didn't do too badly, hanging in there for over 3 and a half years...longer than many historically-acknowledged emperors.
 
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You are correct that it is not an actual Roman coin, but rather a button modeled on one. In this case, I'd say the original model for it might well have been a coin of the Imperial usurper Magnentius like those shown here: https://www.wildwinds.com/coins/ric/magnentius/t.html

You can learn more about Magnentius here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnentius As usurpers went, he didn't do too badly, hanging in there for over 3 and a half years...longer than many historically-acknowledged emperors.

Thanks for the great info! I probably won’t be able to date this piece but it surely seems unique! I can’t find anything like it anywhere (as a button). Thanks again!
 
Anyone know why someone in the 1800's might have had a button replica Roman coin from this era? Is there any significance or just a "show piece"?
 
Such antiquarian fashion vogues have long come in and out of style in keeping with other popular cultural cues and events. For example, when King Tut's tomb was discovered in 1922, suddenly everything for the next several years sported some shlocky Egyptian motif. As far as the mock Roman thing goes, the novel 'Quo Vadis' was immensely popular at the turn of the century, even winning its Polish author the Nobel Prize in Literature, as described here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quo_Vadis_(novel). A couple of decades before that, in the 1880s, the Christian novel 'Ben Hur', set in Rome and Roman Judea was also a huge hit that would have inspired button makers and other artisans to churn out "Roman stuff". Coins, whether real or faux, have always been a popular object for fashion or jewelry.
 
Such antiquarian fashion vogues have long come in and out of style in keeping with other popular cultural cues and events. For example, when King Tut's tomb was discovered in 1922, suddenly everything for the next several years sported some shlocky Egyptian motif. As far as the mock Roman thing goes, the novel 'Quo Vadis' was immensely popular at the turn of the century, even winning its Polish author the Nobel Prize in Literature, as described here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quo_Vadis_(novel). A couple of decades before that, in the 1880s, the Christian novel 'Ben Hur', set in Rome and Roman Judea was also a huge hit that would have inspired button makers and other artisans to churn out "Roman stuff". Coins, whether real or faux, have always been a popular object for fashion or jewelry.

Wow thanks for this response! Awesome stuff
 
Such antiquarian fashion vogues have long come in and out of style in keeping with other popular cultural cues and events. For example, when King Tut's tomb was discovered in 1922, suddenly everything for the next several years sported some shlocky Egyptian motif. As far as the mock Roman thing goes, the novel 'Quo Vadis' was immensely popular at the turn of the century, even winning its Polish author the Nobel Prize in Literature, as described here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quo_Vadis_(novel). A couple of decades before that, in the 1880s, the Christian novel 'Ben Hur', set in Rome and Roman Judea was also a huge hit that would have inspired button makers and other artisans to churn out "Roman stuff". Coins, whether real or faux, have always been a popular object for fashion or jewelry.

Excellent explanation, I hope you chime in more frequently!
 
I found a button last year at a house built c. 1930 (but I'm pretty sure there was an older structure there before it) that looks like it was modeled after an ancient coin. Never could ID it. I posted it in this thread. https://metaldetectingforum.com/showthread.php?t=270950

It certainly looks like an Egyptian motif. Hard to tell what with the lack of detail, but the seated figure's elongated face and the snakelike backwards "S" shape within what could be an orb above the head reminds me of the lioness-headed lunar rain goddess Tefnut being presented by the standing figure with a so-called "Sekhem" staff, a symbol of power with which she was often associated.

Here's more about Tefnut: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tefnut
And here's more on the Sekhem staff: http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/sekhemscepter.htm

zOFxtnPh.jpg

Bear in mind that the Egyptians did not have coins as such in pharoanic times, so you can cast all hopes of that in the bin. There have been several "Egyptian Revivals" in Art, Fashion and other cultural milieux over the centuries. Even the ancient Romans had perennial waves of sudden fascination with things Egyptian in their day. They were ancient even to those ancients, what with the time from the Egyptian Old Kingdom pyramid builders to the first Roman Emperor Augustus being even a bit longer than from his to ours. Some of the Egyptomanias since Napoleon's expedition there in the 1790s and of the 19th and early 20th centuries are described here: https://theadventurine.com/culture/jewelry-history/the-eternal-appeal-of-egyptian-revival-jewelry/. My hunch is what you've found is an expression of one of those fashionable culture droppings and not some ancient artifact of pre-Biblical times miraculously found in some construction rubble. But be not despondent! For Tefnut approaches below to cheer you up with script ideas for that Discovery Channel special on "Ancient Egyptian Mysteries of Kentucky" anyhow, and with useful tips for budget filming (e.g. Just shooting a bunch of feet running around with sandals saves on costume, makeup and prep costs, which means more donuts WITH sprinkles on the kraft services buffet table for the cast and crew).

b6209a015e11b5174ec266ff13d5f381--history-for-kids-gods-and-goddesses.jpg
 
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Thanks for the thorough response! Funny enough, I actually work as a historian for a living, but my specialization is the Middle Ages and not Egyptology, so other than thinking it was an Egyptian design, I was pretty much coming up dry. I'll look into Tefnut et al!
 
We could definitely hang out and swing coils. Have you published anything juicy? I never tire of Mediaeval History...And that's right, I spelt "mediaeval" the olde fashioned way, the way they taught me at St Andrews in Scotland, where I read a year of it as one of those Junior Year Abroad exchange students back in the late '70s. Unfortunately, it was all about everything you never really wanted to know about the Capetian Kings of France...a never-ending exegesis on the effect of Hugh Capet's painful venereal warts on the later crisis of succession of the Isle de France and suchlike. Having subsequently spent several years in Germany, I frankly now find I'm more drawn to late antiquity Gothic, later Old English or other crispy old Germanic original sources. I just get a kick out of parlaying the German I picked up into even a partial understanding of that musty old stuff. I also adore old motorcycles, and have stayed in a Holiday Inn Express.
 
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