Unusual sterling piece

Just starting to get thawed ground in Wisconsin and was hitting one of my old sites. I dug what I thought was just and old pin and when I rubbed it off the dirt came right off and looked like silver. What I thought was a pin was some sort of patented small round part. It is about the size of a trime (my first thought) and has 2 patent nos. on it (2308412 & 2308424 circa 1943). It is even marked sterling. The back looks like it may have been flattened but it's hard to tell. The back kinda looks like the back of those small pins where you pressed the two tabs together to take the pin of or put it on but this back is not removable. Just curious as to where it may have been used. THX Wisconsin Digger

Foolish me, I looked up the patent number and it is indeed the fastener to an Armed forces pin. It must of been a good medal to be made of sterling. Wish I would of found the medal. WD

Good find! If the person who dropped that also lost the medal then it should be nearby…but chances are it has already been dug up by someone. Who knows, maybe you dug it up years ago? That would be kinda funny if you had a military pin missing the back. Check your silvers.

In the military we call this type of fastener a "frog." Although I have never seen a sterling one before!

Must have been SOME medal with a silver fastener. :shocked03:

Nice find WD! I am with you, too bad you didn't find the medal.

I had them on my fire department uniforms, not silver, and was constantly loosing them. Either they would loose tension or the groove in the prong on back of my collar emblems would wear and the frog would not hold.

Hey, it's Silver! Nice find!