During the fall and winter I like to hunt old home sites from the 1800's that are now in farm fields. We tend to find a lot of 1800's coins, buttons and relics where the farmers didn't even know that a house use to set there. My wife and I tracked down this one home site that set way off the road. We started finding a few buttons and Civil War store cards, when I ran across this really nice quarter signal. I pulled out this bent up piece of metal that had lead on with what appeared to be a brass hook. I just threw it in my pouch and went on hunting. After getting home and sorting the good from the trash, I decided to wash this piece because of the brass hook in the lead. After cleaning it up, I seen it had a picture on it that was similar to the Ohio State Seal. After some research I found that it was Civil War Breastplate Buckle and to think I almost discarded it as trash.
Bear - Ohio, USA