1/2″ Black Horn Buttons

Black horn buttons have all the irregularity in color you would expect from a natural cow’s horn & are only 1/8″ thick. Half inch are a good size for waistcoat buttons. In the book A Soldier-Like Way there are two examples of where & how black horn buttons were used. White linen gaiters belonging to Captain Thomas Plumbe 1st Royal Lancashire Militia, 1760 to 1765 at the King’s Own Royal Regiment Museum, Lancaster have 28 5/8th inch black horn buttons on each leg. However in Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II’s Royal collection painted by David Morier in 1751 there are numerous soldiers showing about 30 small black buttons per leg that may be 1/2″. Therefore these black horn buttons work well for spatterdashes & gaitered trousers but were sometimes used in other outer clothing. These strong durable buttons were competitive in price with other types but available in limited numbers in the 18th century since the making of them was slow. Being stamped or pressed out of horn these lack the center hole of the wood and bone molds. Rather these have two small holes. For example advertised in The Virginia Gazette of 1776, “RUN away . . .  in Frederick county, Maryland . . .  two Irish servant men, both weavers, [one of them] . . .  had on a short pale blue coat, that has been turned, double-breasted, with black horn buttons”.