The waist belt shown here carries one of the rarer of the CS two piece type buckles. There are no weak places anywhere; all of the stitching remains as tight as the day it was made.

These are by tradition associated with the CS Engineer Corp, but so far, I have found that when these belts have an identification associated with them, they belonged to a Surgeon, though these were private purchase items so any officer who wanted to, could have purchased this style. Swords, whether purchased by individual officers or by Confederate government contract, were usually accompanied by a sword belt. By carefully gleaning existing information it can be stated with certainty that this buckle was made in Richmond, Virginia. When found with their original swords, they are invariably Boyle and Gamble products.

These script buckles are usually found on russet sword belts, so this may be a period replacement, or perhaps a small number were originally made with black belts. This has a protective ranger behind the buckle that the russet belts do not have to protect the uniform, so this may have been an upgraded version. There is no sign of it ever having sword hangers, however it is clear by the resultant stress that it carried a revolver holster.

There is an extraordinary amount of verdigris on all the brass/leather contact points from its many decades of contact. Personally, I like verdigris, but I understand that not everyone does. I would be happy to properly remove a significant amount of it if the buyer wishes.

This belt has been in at least three prominent collections over the last three or four decades. It be traced back to Dr. Edgar Howell, Dr. Bill Blackman and Mr. Ted Campbell.

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