This rare artifact is a Gettysburg-related Confederate "Forked Tongue" frame buckle as worn by Southern infantrymen in almost every theater of the war. Sandcast brass specimen measures 57mm x 90mm and is in excellent condition overall. The brass frame, rectangular-shaped buckle features a center bar with a single movable 'forked' tongue that can slide up or down the bar. The frame waist belt buckle has acquired a wonderful dark patina.

A rare Confederate artifact, this Gettysburg "Forked Tongue" frame buckle was once part of the personal collection of the Rosensteel / Eckert families of Gettysburg.

This item is from a unique grouping of Gettysburg relics sold at local auction in May 2008 which was once part of the private Civil War collection assembled by both the Rosensteel and Eckert families of Gettysburg. Family history holds that George D. Rosensteel, a long time relic collector, established a Civil War museum in Gettysburg in 1921. He subsequently added the fine relic collection of John H. Rosensteel to the museum. John Rosensteel, George's uncle, lived through the three days of fighting and began gathering war artifacts from the Gettysburg battlefield once the armies left the scene. In 1941, Lawrence Eckert married George Rosensteel's daughter, Angela, and began working at his father-in-law's National Museum. When the Rosensteel family sold the Ziegler's Grove property to the U.S. government in 1972, the family also donated the museum's relic collection to the National Park Service's Gettysburg Battlefield. Eckert was retained by the NPS and became curator of the huge relic collection at Gettysburg. During the same period, the Eckerts' began assembling their own personal Gettysburg collection, specimens of which are offered here.