Appears to be a crimp used to bind two ends of a cord together.  You will
find them on all sorts of clothing that has draw strings, jewelry, the
drive band on sewing machines run by treadle, etc., etc.  I understand
aglets to be for the ends of cord so that it does not frayed, whereas this
would be a clip or crimp to bind two ends together.

         Dan W.





At 03:55 PM 11/7/2004 -0800, you wrote:
>Clothing or hardware?
>This piece of clamped brass, about an inch long and about a quarter of an
>inch wide, is from a 1879-1920's burial. I suspect it is an aglet, the end
>on a shoelace, what do we think? I was looking for a picture on the web
>and couldn't find one, but I saw that these come up from colonial-era
>sites on...they are also still sold for costumes but again no pictures.
>Other clothing-related metal came from the burial.
>Further notes on the little item:
>See photos of the little guy at: http://photos.yahoo.com/suzcart2004
>
>The brass has been rolled and crimped, there were two "tunnels" for cord
>or laces, and the bottom shows the crimping marks across the piece, and
>where the brass has been rolled to make two tubes.
>Two spaces on the item have been punched out, a triangle at the narrow end
>and two triangles at the wider end. The narrow end punch is not visible in
>the photo.
>Some fibers are still lurking in the tubes, but not enough to sample.
>This is probably not very datable but if anyone wants to weigh in please do.
>
>Suzanne Howard-Carter