Napoleon - An Intimate Portrait Napoleon - An Intimate Portrait



On eBay Now...

Britain\'s Napoleon-Waterloo,1815, #36007 with two dug Napoleonic French buttons For Sale


Britain\'s Napoleon-Waterloo,1815, #36007 with two dug Napoleonic French buttons
When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.


Buy Now

Britain\'s Napoleon-Waterloo,1815, #36007 with two dug Napoleonic French buttons:
$55.04

This listing is unlike any other offering for a William Britain figure on (other than my own) You not only get an unopened, brand-new figure of Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of France ( Wm Britain\'s #36007), representing the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, but you also get two dug (excavated with a metal detector) French buttons.
The first button is the standard 1790\'s Republic of France button as worn during Napoleon\'s early campaigns. It says around the rim of the button \"Republique Francaise\" and has a perfect shank / eyelet. The button rates a good 9 out of 10 in condition.
The second button is a very rare one from the 44th Regiment of the Line, the \"Royal Vaisseaux\". The number \"44\" is at the bottom with a ship design being the main feature. This button was found in a road bed and was obviously run over by a wagon, flattening the shank and evenly pushing the face of the button. These Royal Vaisseaux buttons are quite rare. Detectorists might find one of them for every 500 buttons they dig; if that. Having collected dug French buttons for 30 years, you seldom see these buttons which were actually worn by infantrymen. This button\'s design (regimental number and ship) according to Marian Hurley\'s book, \"A Guide to French Military Buttons of the American Revolution, 1775-1783\", dates to the mid-1770\'s to the mid-1780\'s. This exact button, based on the style of shank, dates to, I believe, the mid-to-late 1780\'s.
Here\'s some further information I\'ve gleaned over the years from the Internet to explain these buttons with a ship design. These \"ship\" buttons have nothing at all to do with the French navy or Colonial forces. It\'s a metropolitan infantry regiment of the French army. The French Navy had their own colonial regiments which used an anchor motif without a regimental number. The Royal Vaisseaux Regiment was originally raised for sea service but incorporated into the land army in the late 1600\'s. They kept their original title even though they were regular infantry for over 100 years. As for the ship, it is not one in particular but a generic one used a symbol reflecting their origins.


Buy Now


Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /home/nap/public_html/store/relateditems.php on line 72

Images © photo12.com-Pierre-Jean Chalençon
A Traveling Exhibition from Russell Etling Company (c) 2011