Our button collection

No, not political buttons. Button, buttons. The kind you fasten on your shirt.

Paperweight and Kaleidescope Glass Buttons


Close up

A while ago, David's mom told me about a button collection that she had in the basement that she wanted us to have. She said that when she was about 10 that her grandmother got her into button collecting. She and her parents would watch the auctions and when a sewing machine would come up, they would go to the auction house early to ask if she could have any buttons that might have come with it. Usually, she said, they would give the buttons to the cute little girl for free. Also, Ann's (my mother-in-law) father and grandfather had a dental practice. They displayed her buttons in the waiting room. When patients would come in, often they would comment on the buttons and say "My aunt used to collect buttons. Let me see if I can find the ones she left me and I will bring them in for your daughter." And so she gathered and gathered buttons.

In my mind, I imagined this collection would consist of a few jars of buttons. A few months ago, I learned how greatly I underestimated when she brought it up from the basement for us to take home. Not only did I underestimate the quantity (we have more than a dozen boxes of filled with organized button cards) but also the quality. Some of these buttons are truly works of art. Others, especially the military buttons, hold volumes of stories. I had no idea what buttons could be!

Once the collection came up from the basement, we re-wrapped the buttons in bubble wrap and prepared them to come home with us. Not only do we have Ann's collection, but we also have her grandmother's collection, all of which has been sitting in the basement for at last the last 30 years, if not more. Once we got the buttons home, we took some time to look through them.

The buttons that belonged to Ann are meticulously sorted and sewn (with dental floss...I mentioned that her father was a dentist) to button cards. A career biostatistician, it was not surpirsing to see that she had paid attention to detail as a child. Button cards are pieces of card stock that are perforated with 70 little holes to enable the shank of a button to fit through to the back and then be sewn onto the card. This way the collector can sort and catalog her button treasures.

The buttons that belonged to Florence, David's great-grandmother, are grouped in all sorts of ways. There are button cards, but there are also jars, little drawers, and many envelopes full of buttons. The interesting thing about the buttons that are in envelopes is that they are grouped according to the kind of button, but there are aften scraps of paper with her handwriting, describing the button and how much she was planning to sell it for. In addition, occasionally we would come across larger slips of paper on which she would inventory her buttons in order to total the amount she felt they were worth. It's interesting to attempt to find the buttons she was cataloging at the time. According to Ann, Florence was a button dealer, and she would sell at button shows.

In order to find out more about our buttons, we went online. We were able to learn about a few of our buttons immediately. These were the military buttons. It was easy to track them down because they are brass, and many of the brass buttons have the name of the button maker on the back of the button. You can also look up the crests that appear on the military buttons and learn about the regimens that wore them. We have one button that was from an Irish regimen that fought in WWI. The button was minted at the turn of the century. But the thing is, we don't have many of these brass buttons, which means we needed to look for other sources in order to learn about the majority of the thousands of buttons that we now have. As it turns out, there is a Buckeye Button Society (i.e. an Ohio Button Club) of which there is a Central Ohio Chapter that meets on the 4th Sunday of each month at the Hilliard Public Library. Betcha didn't know that! I contacted them and after some schedule conflicts, David and I were able to attend one of their meetings today.

In the days leading up to today's meeting, we talked to several of our friends and family members about our impending attendence. The overwhelming question asked was "What kind of person collects buttons?" So stop for a minute. What do you think? Got a picture in your head? Is it there? Well, I can tell you that we weren't surprised by who greeted us at the button meeting: a lively group of mostly women, but a few men, who were mostly of our parent's and grandparent's generation. They were thrilled to have us there and to tell us all about the small sampling of buttons that we brought from our collection. I'd be lying if I said that I didn't fear that they might all be button hawks, savily fingering out buttons while telling us how common they are all the while knowing that they can be sold on eBay for a small fortune. Fortunately, everyone was warm and forthright. I think the sense I mostly got was that they were happy to have new blood interested in the thing that they are passionate about.

Another interesting development is that a couple of them asked for the name of David's great-grandmother and where she used to collect buttons. Apparently there is a believe that there may be some "old timers" who might have known Florence in the Dayton branch of the Buckeye Button Society. One woman offered to put the information in their bulletin to see if it turned up anyone who might remember her from 40 years ago.

Our lives are, at the moment, more full than we would like to admit, even to ourselves. While the idea of collecting buttons is, you may laugh at me, intriguing--I love to sort and organize things and I think that historical treasure hunts are just plain fun--the practicality of fitting it into our lives right now is slim. We're lucky to get the fridge stocked weekly and to have clean clothes that make it into our closets before Skoenkie, our cat, pilfers them away piece by piece (he's a carrier). I think we will take up the offer of a couple button club members who said they could help us determine what we have and how better to restore it and then store it away for a time when we can more actively enjoy the buttons. We may also take some groups of the better buttons and put them in displays to hang on the walls. We've included some pictures of one of the button displays that was made my David's great-grandmother Florence (the button clubbers assured us that these were very nice buttons, Division I, even). We are planning on hanging it in our room, though we've been advised to remount it with different wire and to clean the buttons a bit more than I did with just water and a paper towel.

What this all goes to show, without a shadow of a doubt, is that there are subcultures for just about anything that you can think of. Groups of people that are passionate about things that you don't give a second thought, like buttons. Or gourds. I know a lady who goes to a national gourd expo yearly. Or pig racing. We went to a pig race last year. You get my point. So if you ever feel bored, just look around your house a bit. There's sure to be a hobby there somewhere. And a WHOLE slew of people who are just waiting to be your friends and tell you all about it.