Looking for information on brass seals or stamps. I have received a private collection of historic artifacts for analysis and documentation that comes from the floodplain area of the Maumee River (Ohio) below the battle site of Fallen Timbers (1794). The collection is apparently a long term site dating 1825-1875 based on ceramics, buttons (with marks ) and clay pipes (with marks). The only artifact which appears to date earlier (pre-War of 1812) is a brass seal or stamp used for impressing some official design or emblem over hot wax to seal correspondence of some type. The arifact is 23 mm in height and 18 mm in width. Its shape is the form of a crown (British?). Decorative motifs on both sides of the seal consist of a 5-pointed star, moon (?), half-moon, and a floral design. The upper portion of the crown is composed of two separate sides both part of the base and bent inward towards each other until they meet at the top. The base of the seal device is circular and shows a recessed groove along the upper portion of the base interior for holding the actual engraved stamp, probably made of some organic material. Does anyone know of good documentary sources for late-18th/early-19th seals/stamps and any archaeolical sites that this type of artifact may have been excavated and reported on? Pat Tucker [log in to unmask]