Artifact: Knee Buckles
Materials: Metal
Dimensions: 1 x 1 1/2 in
Date: Mid 18thCentury
Origin: United States
Collection: LACMA
License: Public Domain
Ledger Entry: Knee Buckles
Department: Accessories
Customer: Elias Cockerill
Ledger Page: 203
Imported From: Buckles were frequently imported from Sheffield or Birmingham
Product Description
Breeches were an article of men's clothing covering the body from the waist down. The breeches could be closed and fastened by either buttons or by a draw-string, but in the eighteenth century, decorated buckles were often used both the fasten the breeches and as fashion accessories. Breeches buckles were similar in form to shoe buckles, but tended to be smaller and often less elaborate. Unlike shoe buckles, where the pivot spanned the width of the rectangle, breeches buckles frequently spanned the length.
Citation: Ivor Noël Hume. A Guide to Artifacts of Colonial America. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001), 84-86.; James M. Gaynor and Nancy L. Hagedorn, Tools: Working Wood in Eighteenth-Century America (Williamsburg, VA: The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1993).
Historical Price: 5 pence; Modern USD: $4.67
Product Variations
The databases record five purchases of knee buckles. Their prices range from four pence to one shilling ten pence. The databases record a total of thirteen buckles, six of these do not specify whether they are shoe or knee buckles. The only material noted in the ledger for buckles is steel, but most of them do not list material.
