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Civil War Antique Categories

Browse letters, photographs, documents, buttons, textiles, flags, currency, veterans’ material, home-front objects, and cautious educational arms pages.

Collector guide

Letters and Correspondence

Wartime letters, envelopes, patriotic covers, censored mail, home-front correspondence, and identified family groups.

Collector guide

Diaries and Journals

Daily service, camp life, marches, hospitals, prisons, politics, and family experience recorded in bound or improvised books.

Collector guide

Military Documents

Discharges, enlistments, commissions, orders, passes, payroll records, hospital papers, and administrative forms.

Collector guide

Civil War Photographs

Ambrotypes, tintypes, cartes de visite, albumen prints, stereographs, cases, mounts, photographer imprints, and identifications.

Collector guide

Uniform Buttons

Federal, state, staff, militia, local, and postwar buttons studied through faces, backmarks, shanks, manufacture, and archaeological context.

Collector guide

Belt Plates and Buckles

Waist-belt plates, cartridge-box plates, shoulder-belt plates, state patterns, militia pieces, hooks, lead fill, and excavated relics.

Collector guide

Insignia, Medals, Pins, and Ribbons

Hat devices, corps badges, service medals, reunion badges, ribbons, unit pins, and veterans’ organization material.

Collector guide

Uniforms and Military Textiles

Coats, trousers, shirts, sashes, straps, chevrons, blankets, sewing, linings, labels, repairs, and family preservation.

Collector guide

Flags, Guidons, and Colors

National colors, regimental flags, company flags, guidons, presentation flags, fragments, inscriptions, staffs, and postwar copies.

Collector guide

Maps, Atlases, and Battlefield Plans

Campaign maps, field sketches, newspaper maps, pocket maps, engineer material, printed atlases, annotations, and provenance.

Collector guide

Newspapers and Broadsides

Battle news, casualty lists, proclamations, recruiting notices, election material, local war news, and commemorative printing.

Collector guide

Posters, Prints, and Engravings

Recruiting posters, lithographs, portraits, battle prints, memorial images, political cartoons, and popular visual culture.

Collector guide

Currency, Scrip, and Fiscal Paper

Confederate notes, obsolete banknotes, state and local scrip, military checks, coupons, bonds, and related financial documents.

Collector guide

Civil War Tokens

Patriotic and store-card tokens, dies, metals, merchants, slogans, varieties, restrikes, and third-party certification.

Collector guide

Sutler and Camp Trade Material

Sutler tokens, invoices, tent signs, checks, store cards, containers, personal purchases, and soldier commerce.

Collector guide

Medical and Hospital Material

Hospital papers, medical kits, nursing objects, sanitary commission material, medicine containers, surgeon records, and patient history.

Collector guide

Camp and Field Equipment

Canteens, haversacks, knapsacks, mess gear, tents, blankets, tools, writing sets, and personal camp objects.

Collector guide

Soldiers’ Personal Effects

Wallets, sewing kits, shaving gear, pipes, devotional objects, photographs, keepsakes, rings, and identified pocket contents.

Collector guide

Books, Pamphlets, and Imprints

Military manuals, sermons, political pamphlets, regimental histories, memoirs, songsters, tracts, and soldiers’ owned books.

Collector guide

Sheet Music and Songsters

Patriotic songs, campaign music, minstrel material, soldiers’ songbooks, publishers, illustrated covers, and home-front performance.

Collector guide

Slavery, Emancipation, and Freedom Documents

Manumission papers, abolition material, contraband-camp records, USCT recruitment, freedpeople’s records, and emancipation-era print culture.

Collector guide

United States Colored Troops Material

USCT photographs, documents, recruiting material, unit records, badges, letters, and family history.

Collector guide

Naval and Maritime Material

Navy photographs, documents, shipboard objects, blockade material, sailor effects, charts, and river-war history.

Collector guide

Prisoner-of-War Material

Prison letters, parole papers, diaries, camp-made objects, exchange records, Andersonville and Union prison history.

Collector guide

Home-Front Material

Aid societies, fundraising fairs, mourning, rationing, political organizing, women’s work, businesses, schools, and local community records.

Collector guide

GAR and Union Veterans’ Material

Grand Army of the Republic badges, ribbons, post records, encampments, uniforms, photographs, memorial objects, and reunions.

Collector guide

Confederate Veterans and Reunion Material

United Confederate Veterans badges, reunion ribbons, camp records, memorial material, and postwar Lost Cause imagery.

Collector guide

Autographs and Signed Material

Soldier, officer, politician, nurse, abolitionist, and civilian signatures studied with document context and handwriting comparison.

Collector guide

Firearms and Long Arms

Historical identification of muskets, rifles, carbines, conversions, markings, stocks, repairs, and provenance.

Collector guide

Swords, Sabers, and Bayonets

Historical identification of blades, hilts, scabbards, maker marks, inspector marks, unit associations, repairs, and postwar presentation pieces.

Collector guide

Ammunition and Projectiles

Educational identification of bullets, cartridges, shells, fuzes, and artillery fragments with strict safety and legal controls.