Rod_outbak wrote:Had a quick look around for similar yesterday, and have a couple of ideas.
1). Powder horns tend to be used to designate either military infantry or rifle regiment/battalion/etc. - In some instances, volunteer rifles.
[Cannon depict artillery, snakes depicted medical, anchors usually depict marine, etc etc]
2). Is it a powder horn or just a horn? I dont know what would show it as being one of the other.
3). Quite a few British buttons DONT have the crown on them; it depends on the era, and the particular regiment.
Crowns seem much more common in later designs, but not as much in what I've found from the 1800's
4). Looking at similar designs of powder horns, the closest designs I saw were dated from just prior to the US civil war.
5). The metal on the back seems weird for a standard button(usually a loop of some design). It looks different to nearly every button back I saw. I wondered if it was actually a cap of some sort, and the metal on back being the remains of a seal-cap, but I didnt find anything that matched.
6). I didnt find any buttons that combined a snake, a sword, staff and powder horn.
7). After looking at around 500 different buttons (mostly British, some French, and some USA), I didnt see anything even close to the same design.
8). Not very many buttons that I saw have any sort of shaping (crenation??) around the outer rim. Quite unusual; suggests it would be more expensive to make than the normal service coat buttons.
From the buttons I looked at, I'd guess either British of an as-yet unknown regiment, or a volunteer infantry group from before the US civil-war era.
My 2 cents worth.
An interesting find; to be sure!
I don't think it is Americian. Yanks use a staff with two serpents and wings as their medical symbol, where the true symbol is only one snake and no wings.
This is known as the Rod of Asclepius (Greek: Ράβδος του Ασκληπιού, Rábdos tou Asklipioú; Unicode symbol: ⚕), also known as the Staff of Asclepius (sometimes also spelled Asklepios or Aesculapius) and as the asklepian, is a serpent-entwined rod wielded by the Greek god Asclepius, a deity associated with healing and medicine. The symbol has continued to be used in modern times, where it is associated with medicine and health care, yet frequently confused with the staff of the god Hermes, the caduceus.
The caduceus on the other hand, (☤; /kəˈdjuːʃəs, -siəs/; Latin cādūceus, from Greek κηρύκειον kērū́keion "herald's wand, or staff") is the staff carried by Hermes in Greek mythology and consequently by Hermes Trismegistus in Greco-Egyptian mythology. The same staff was also borne by heralds in general, for example by Iris, the messenger of Hera. It is a short staff entwined by two serpents, sometimes surmounted by wings. In Roman iconography, it was often depicted being carried in the left hand of Mercury, the messenger of the gods, guide of the dead, and protector of merchants, shepherds, gamblers, liars, and thieves.
Rifle stock and pistol grip reproduction.
