Texas x ray from back


  Texas x ray from side


  SNY x ray from back

This is probably the belt plate most closely associated with the Texas troops in Virginia. Even so, it is extraordinarily rare, rating a 9 on the Mullinax rarity scale. It is the only star plate of the Confederate era that was only used by Texans.

It is supposed, because of its rarity and crudeness of manufacture, that it was made specifically for a company in Texas by a local artisan.

The plate has a die-struck brass face, filled with pewter to give it strength, and to hold the Iron wire hooks in place. Remarkably, this example still has all but the ends of the wire hooks still in place. The pewter filling remains intact. The backing filler and face were in such very good condition that I suspected that it had been professionally repaired. Because of this I had the plate x rayed to see to what extent it had been repaired. However, much to my surprise I found that it had not been repaired; that it remained in its original, excellent condition. A copy of the x ray is shown below, along with an x ray of a SNY belt plate that has been repaired, in order to show how a repaired plate appears to the x ray. To the naked eye, the SNY has no flaws in the back, but the filled spaces show up clearly in the x ray.

This clearly demonstrates that the plate remains in its original, virtually pristine excavated condition.

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