Name/Title
Spanish Capitana Type Naval Button 1733 Fleet (97)Description
This example was recovered from a Florida beach in the mid-1980s by a colleague. It measures 19.61mm. I have professionally cleaned and conserved this rare example.
Some of these rare Capitano-type buttons have found on the wreck sites of the 1733 treasure fleet. These deeply convex buttons have extended outer rims and, like other Spanish military buttons of the eighteenth century, can sometimes be found with embedded wire shanks (similar to colonial marine buttons of the same era). The "target" or "bull's eye" design's central is on a circular field. These buttons, which are tentatively assigned to Spanish naval use during the ca. 1725-1750 period, are also occasionally recovered from land sites in Florida.