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Date: | Wed, 4 Jan 2012 10:42:13 -0500 |
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Don't remember the date, but wasn't Admiral Vernon's ill-fated seige of
Cartagena around this time, and didn't the British produce medals commemorating
this "victory" in advance? If i recall, the governement had to confiscate
them all to avoid embarrassment. Perhaps those buttons were pro-British
and could no longer be used in the UK after Vernon's debacle, so they were
dumped in America on a population that was even more patriotic than those in
the motherland at that time (1740s).
Phoenix buttons of the early 19th century are an interesting analogy. Made
in the UK for the army of Henri Christophe of Haiti, the tyrant was
overthrown before delivery, so the enterprising Brits traded their inventory on the
Pacific Coast, where buttons with French inscriptions were still considered
the height of fashion in revolutionary circles. There was certainly no
martket for things French in Europe after Waterloo and especially not in the
UK. Caveat emptor!
Bob Hoover
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