These scarce plates were made at the Noble Brothers Foundry in Rome, Georgia. Made of pewter, an alloy whose exact composition can vary slightly, they are very hard to find in any acceptable condition. The plates seem often to have cracked in service or their simple wire hooks broke off, leaving a simple blob of solder, and once lost by the soldier they fare poorly in the soil from the composition of the metal.

This one was recovered in Braxton Bragg’s winter camps near Shelbyville, Tennessee, with the left half intact, preserving the “C.S.” on the face and the upper and lower hooks on the reverse. The right half was missing and has been replaced in a superb restoration that matches the left half of the plate in surface, color, and the definition of the “A.” The restorer intentionally did not put a fastening hook on the reverse, but did include a small blob of soldier that marks its place, and he deserves more the job title of “magician,” since the plate displays very much as one simply missing a hook or mended.

With broken and mended examples of these scarce plates bringing three times the price of this one, and an undamaged example bringing at least that much again, this is a bargain. See Mullinax (1991) plates 094 and 095, and plates 112 and 113 of the expanded edition for parallel examples.  [sr]

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