Catalog of button backmarks

	The Civil War Relicman, Harry Ridgeway.
	Winchester, Virginia USA (changed hands 70 times in the Civil War!).
	relicman.com.

Ridgeway Reference Archive, Civil War buttons.
Catalog of button backmarks.

This is the "Ridgeway Reference Archive", a research tool for educational purposes only, and is provided at no cost to the reader. Some of the relics listed are retained in the author's collection, most reside in other collections and are not owned by the author. None of the items listed in this section are for sale, please refer to relicman.com sales listings for items offered for sale. This is a work in progress, I list items as I get to them, there are many patterns that are not listed yet, this list will be regularly updated as I get pictures and descriptions for more items. I will also correct mistakes, so if you see any please tell me.
All items listed are believed to be authentic to the Civil War or as otherwise described.
Any excavated relics have been recovered from private property with owners permission.
This information is available for research purposes, pictures may be used by permission only.

Most information on this page is from Tice or Albert books, the pictures are generally from buttons that I have handled.

I am compiling this list of backmarks, as a service for the button collector. As I get good pictures of the backs of buttons (generally from buttons as I have them to list on my website) I am cataloging them more or less according to "Dating Buttons, A Chronology of Button Types, Makers, Retailers & Their Backmarks" by Warren K. Tice. This is meant to be a supplement to that work by photographing the backmarks not pictured in that book, and development of a numbering system. You will still need to refer to that work as there is much information in it that I do not intend to cover in this reference.

It is my intention to photograph and publish (eventually) all of the backs that I get but I will do it piecemeal as I get them so here is a start. My numbering system will reference Tice book, my scheme is alphabetical according to what is seen on the backmarks. So for example, I will list Scovill backs under "S", Extra Quality under "E", even though both may have been listed by Tice under Scovill. Tice did not number his entries so when I reference a Tice backmark, I will refer to the "count" within a section. For example, Scovill Manufacturing Co. starts on page 71 and runs four pages, I count 70 entries, and my references will refer to that count. My listings will follow an alphabetical ordering and not the Tice ordering however and there will be lots of missing numbers, which means that I either have not found the button yet or have not been able to match to a specific Tice entry. I have also tried to translate each backmark into "english", but special characters and graphics, spacing, punctuation, make this difficult at best, so rather than try to describe them as others have attempted, I am only describing them as I am able to also make pictures of them.

I make no warranties or guarantees whatsoever of any of the data contained in this reference of backmarks, this is a compilation of information only and is provided as a reference tool available for button research. However, if you find that I have made mistakes, please tell me about them and I will make corrections, that is a major advantage of this internet media versus the print media, I can add things and make corrections as we go, I don't have to wait till I have it all to publish any of it. I just started this May 2006 so please be patient with this, it will take some time to build the substance of this data base.