Hi all,
 
A colleague has asked me to post this to HISTARCH.  Reply on list or
directly to me if you prefer, and I will see that he gets the information.
 
Thanks,
 
Chris Clement
 
>An interesting fact has recently come to me:  I was told of the custom of
>auctioning off uniform buttons.  Apparently this was common in the lower
>ranks in North America, and when a soldier died, his friends would auction
>the buttons and send the money home to his family.   I am trying to find
>some verification of this custom, and how widespread it may have been - it
>certainly would mess things up from an archaeological identification point
>of view.   Has anyone ever heard of anything like this before?
 
 
Christopher Ohm Clement, Ph.D.
South Carolina Institute of Archaeology
   and Anthropology
1321 Pendleton St.
Columbia, SC 29208
(803) 777-8044
(803) 254-1338 (fax)
http://www.cla.sc.edu/sciaa/sciaa.html
http://www.cla.sc.edu/sciaa/staff/clement/