Odd Confederate officer belt, can you ID it?

major bill

Brev. Brig. Gen'l
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Aug 25, 2012
Test for the night. I was going through some older Journal of the Company of Military Collectors & Historians tonight and found an interesting article about a Confederate belt. The article tells me who made this belt, but who can identify who made the belt without the Journal article?



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I would say English made, a long time ago I saw a collection of Confederate fantasy belt plates. Some were very high quality, others were not, but all were English made. My second guess would be in the north.
 
This is indeed a Leach & Rigdon cavalry belt owned by Colonel Harvey Walker. This belt and a Leach & Rigdon officer's cavalry saber were shipped home after Colonel Walker was killed. Supposable the belt was one of six made by Leach & Rigdon. This is a rare Confederate belt.
A while back I bought a pair of Leach and Rigdon clips to attach a saber to the saber belt straps to go with my original cavalry saber. I could have sworn they had a reproduction buckle that matched the one you showed so for once I actually got a lucky guess right.
 
I have a set of 12 Journal of the Company of Military Collectors & Historians for the years 1959-1961 and am trying to decide how to store the magazines. They came in the binder which has medal rods to hold them in. My other Journal of the Company of Military Collectors & Historians are in plastic sleeves to protect them so I am going through these magazines to see what damage the medal rods are doing. Anyway there are some interesting articles from 1959-1961. Here is a button dug up at a Confederate site. Anyone know who "H.M.A." is? Bench mark is "Steele & Johnson"

Hillsborough Military Academy of North Carolina? The article author did not know the origin of the button in 1960 and I am not sure the he ever found out the origin of this "Confederate" button.


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Somewhere I read that Leach & Rigdon only made buckles that went with their sabers. None sold separately. Does anyone know if this is true and did they make them themselves or did they contract for them?
 
Hillsborough Military Academy of North Carolina? The article author did not know the origin of the button in 1960 and I am not sure the he ever found out the origin of this "Confederate" button.
The button is a Henderson Male Academy and is listed in Alberts book as SU 163 and in fact is a CS button and Alberts has it as CS 308.


Somewhere I read that Leach & Rigdon only made buckles that went with their sabers. None sold separately. Does anyone know if this is true and did they make them themselves or did they contract for them?

Leach & Rigdon produced many items for the CS Army most of it was private purchase.They did have a contract to make a 1500 Colt copy 36 cal pistol that they produced in Columbus Miss. They did make swords, 2 piece CS sword plates and the famous L&R cavalry spur. The square 2 piece is a very rare bird if it original. About 4 months ago one came up for auction and it passed at $36000. Hanover Brass makes a repop so "Caveat Emptor"
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