Here A Button, There A Button

I would like to conclude my series on buttons by covering some other common types of buttons. 

Vegetable Ivory

First on my list are vegetable ivory buttons.  Vegetable ivory comes from the Tagua nut that grows on trees in South America.  This nut can be carved and finished to a fine ivory like finish.  They are very dense and dye does not penetrate.  Typically the button holes were drilled after they were dyed, so frequently you can tell a VI button by looking at the back.  Sometimes you can also see some graining.

                                                  Tagua Nuts

       Back of a Vegetable Ivory Button showing the dyed and undyed surfaces.

These buttons made their appearance at the 1862 Universal Exposition in Paris and were quite common between 1870 and 1920.¹  This material was a cheaper, more abundant substitute for real ivory.  A resurrection of this type of button just might help save the rainforest by giving South American farmers an income from these nuts, thus encouraging them to plant more trees.

                             Some exquisite vegetable ivory whistles

Horn Buttons

Another natural material for making buttons is horn.  Horn can be heated and pressed into a mold, and thus able to be formed in intricate designs.  One of the tell-tale marks of a horn button is located on the back.  Often there is a pick mark in the back where it was pried from the mold

Buffalo horn buttons (whistles) showing front and back.  You can see the faint pick mark between the holes on the back.

Perfume Buttons

Perfume buttons were made for…you guessed it, perfume.  In the 19^th century perfume was oil based, rather than alcohol based.  Women were justifiably concerned about perfume staining their clothing so they used metal buttons with velvet, fabric or hair inserts to place their perfume on.  When the men went off to war a woman might give him one of her perfume buttons to sew underneath his collar so that he could carry her scent with him. 

                            A perfume button with a velvet insert

Metal Buttons

My series would not be complete without mentioning metal buttons.  The Victorian Era was noted for being ornate.  Many of the metal buttons of the period reflected this ornateness.  They exhibited their love of the arts with picture buttons portraying stories.  These buttons have become very collectible, some of them bringing upwards of $75 or more. Most of the older buttons have a shank on the back.

Metal buttons showing the picture (although this is a rather simple example) and the back, showing the shank.

¹ Sisters Vintage Button Accessories, http://www.kk-design.com/scti/in103/students/buttons/button_project/button%20types/types.htm

China Buttons

I would like to continue my series on buttons this week with a discussion of china buttons.  Calico buttons, which I covered in part one of this series, are a type of china but there are many, many more.  This week a picture will be worth a thousand words, so here we go…

Chinas come in many sizes, colors and body shapes.  Most of them were made in France.  The Bapterosses plant was one of the major plants there.

One of the body shapes is called an “inkwell”.  This is because it has sloping sides and resembles its namesake.  Inkwells come in many different patterns, including calicos. 

These buttons are “pie crust” buttons, named because of the fluted rim.

These are ringers.  I have seen pictures on the Internet of clothing dating to the early 1860s that have ringer buttons on them.  They have also been found on salesman’s sample cards alongside calicos, dating them to the same time period.  They come in many different colors and may have a single band or two or three bands.  I have some ringers that also fall under the pie crust category.

Hobnails are as the name suggests.  (top row).  Underwear buttons have big holes that are reminiscent of alien eyes (bottom row),

Another button that was common during the mid 19^th century is the gaiter.  Gaiters are rounded or conical in shape, and most have metal shanks on the bottom.  Some gaiters have circular patterns and are known as “bulls-eyes”.  The button on the bottom is called a “bird cage” because of the type of shank. 

One of the most fun buttons is the “whistle”.  Whistle buttons have one hole at the top and two holes in the bottom (the second button from the left on the bottom row shows the back side).  This hides the thread inside the button and protects it from wear.  These whistles are fairly plain.  I have seen some that are works of art.

The last type of china that I will illustrate is the stencil.  It is very hard to find information on the inception of the stencil, although we know that they ceased being made around the World War II era.  At some point in the twentieth century they were also made out of aluminum.  These stencils look very different from the chinas.  Stencils come in several patterns and colors, although not as many patterns as calicos. 

If you are interested in china buttons and want to see more, I found a wonderful website that has many pictures on it.  I would recommend it for reference and if you just want the china “wow” factor.

http://www.angelfire.com/tx5/chinaexchange/

For more information I would also recommend the book “Guidelines For Collecting China Buttons” by Ruth Lamm.  It is currently out of print, but is a good handbook if you can find one.

Next week I will conclude this series with a segment on vegetable ivory, metals and perfume buttons. 

Mr. Goodyear and Rubber

Back in the early 1800s trade ships brought rubber to the United States from the Indies.  Enterprising manufacturers began using the material to make products.  There was only one problem.  The rubber turned rock hard in the winter, and when summer came it melted into a sticky goo.  Customers began returning their products which had to be buried due to the smell.  Some of these manufacturers consequently went bankrupt.   Enter on the scene Mr. Charles Goodyear.  This man felt that it was his God given calling to find a way to convert this material into something usable.   He spent several years experimenting until he finally figured out a way to convert this precursor of plastic into something that manufacturers could use.  The process was called Vulcanization.  After this process was developed, rubber was able to be used in the manufacture of many products.  Mind you, this was decades before the advent of tires.

One of the items made from rubber was buttons.  When I first discovered rubber buttons I was intrigued.  When I think of rubber I think of something flexible.   Goodyear rubber buttons are hard.  If you put several in your hands and shake them the noise resembles the clink of poker chips.  Many of the buttons are marked on the back (back marked) with the Goodyear patent date (1851) and possibly the name of the manufacturer.  Common ones are:  IRC (India Rubber Company); N.R. Co (Novelty Rubber Company); A.R. Co (American Rubber Company); and D.H.R. Co (Dickinson Hard Rubber Company.  These buttons come in 16 different sizes, and many shapes and designs, including picture buttons.¹  I will illustrate some of the different buttons here.  Please note that most of these shapes are commonly found in buttons made of other media as well.

An original card of Goodyears

A Goodyear back-mark

A rare brown Goodyear

A Goodyear whistle.  A whistle button has one hole on the top and two on the bottom.  This places the thread inside the button and protects it.  

A Goodyear with a metal shank.

Four of the many designs of Goodyear's  These buttons are found in two and four hole, and shank style among others.

Rubber was also used to make galoshes, also called "rubbers".  Pictured here is a pair of children's boots with rubber galoshes.

The bottoms of the boots are back marked with the Goodyear brand.

1 Gorski, Jill, "Goodyear Rubber Buttons", Bead and Button Magazine, 7/9/2011,  http://bnb.jewelrymakingmagazines.com/Community/Button%20Corner/NBS%20Articles/2009/07/Goodyear%20rubber%20buttons.aspx

Calico Buttons

When I started reenacting I was under the impression that the Victorians were so utilitarian that they only had buttons made from bone, shell, wood or other readily available, but primitive material.  The fact is that the Victorians were very fancy.   If you look at pictures from the era, you will often see buttons of a contrasting color gracing the front of a lady’s blouse or dress.  Their buttons were their adornment.  Buttons of the day were made of china, rubber, gutta percha, horn, metal, ivory and any other media available.  While I am not an expert, I will be starting a series here on Victorian buttons, and one of the most prized and sought-after buttons is the calico. 

Calico buttons are a type of china button, named after the fabric which it was created to compliment.  You can tell the difference between a china button and a plastic button by looking at the back.  A china button is rough where it sat in the kiln.  A plastic button is smooth, and may have a small dot where the plastic was injected into the mold.  China buttons also feel cooler to the touch, if you hold them to your cheek, than plastic.

Calicos got their start in 1840 when Richard Prosser patented a method of compressing a fine dry powder into a button, which was then fired.  The design is then affixed using transfer paper and then baked again.¹  A whole cache of calico buttons were found on the wreck of the Steamship Arabia which sank in 1856 in Kansas.  This places them well before the Civil War. 

Buttons originally came on a card.  The purchaser would specify how many buttons they wanted, and the sales clerk would cut off the amount that was needed.  Many of the carded china buttons that I have seen indicate that they were made in France, in the Bapterosses plant. 

These buttons come in many different shapes, sizes and colors, and are available in two, three, and four hole.  Some even come rimmed with metal (these are rare and bring a good price on the market.)  Three hundred twenty six different patterns have been identified.  The most common calico is a colored pattern on white; however, there is also a white on dark variation.  Because of  the difficulty of finding complete sets of these buttons, reproductions are a reasonable alternative for living historians.  These are available at http://www.annaandabigails.com/. 

Whenever I go to a museum now, I look for old clothing to study the styles, the fabrics and the buttons.  I seldom see buttons today that can rival the beauty of these vintage buttons.  It is like wearing jewelry on your clothing.  Maybe we need to get back to basics and bring these buttons back into vogue. 

¹ Lamm, Ruth, Beatrice and Lester Lorah, and Helen W. Schuler.  Guidelines for Collecting

       China Buttons.  Boyertown, PA.  1970.