Hello Rob
Royal Artillery buttons can be quite complex but trying to keep it fairly simple, it is safe to say that when looking at buttons from, say, the Victorian period onwards, there should, in theory, be just two different finishes. Gilt/brass for the Regular Artillery and silver plated/white metal for Volunteer Artillery (there was also a Militia Artillery who first used silver plated/white metal and then changed to gilt/brass just to complicate matters!). Some early buttons can also be found in pewter but let's not complicate things too much!
Basically, officers would have used either gilt or silver (for Regular and Volunteer Artillery) and other ranks would have used brass or white metal.
There were also different patterns of artillery button in use prior to 1873 using a crown over 3 guns (and variants thereof) and these can be found in the same finishes. Finally there was another pattern used by the Royal Horse Artillery.
Obviously this does not tell the whole story but enough to show that there were quite a few different patterns and finishes over the years!
Roger
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