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Collecting Old Buttons

I can remember when was just a small child, my mother would have a glass, gallon jar loaded with a variety of buttons. There were glass buttons, several different designed plastic buttons, porcelain buttons, ivory buttons, wooden ones, those made from bone and those of stone. She had quite a collection of buttons. These plus countless additional materials have traditional been created into not just buttons but actual works of art.

Painting, needlework, engraving, and an assortment of other forms of artwork have gone into centuries of button decorating making many of the buttons collectibles today.

The earliest buttons were fashioned 4000 years ago and were initially produced as decorations not as the modern clothing fasteners. When archeologists initially embark upon opening the ancient tombs of Egypt, they discovered an extensive selection of buttons prepared with diverse materials. With these early Egyptian unearthing of decorative fasteners, it is evident that a simple item such as a button has evolved to the point in our culture where it is currently deem an item of value.

Throughout the ages, both men and women have worn buttons to embellish themselves. In the 1500's King Francis I, had in excess of 13,000 gold buttons placed on a solitary coat. In later years sizeable sums of money was splurged by King Louis XIV of France on the purchase of buttons.

There ultimately came a point in time when someone realized that by merely slipping a cord around the button or by cutting a slot into an area of the material the ornamental button would be transformed into an item of usefulness. Since garments could now be prepared with a closer, fit the notion of using buttons tended to alter the fashion designs of the time.
As a result, it is no surprise that buttons has developed into such a collectible item today. People will go to all manner of extremes to add distinctive buttons to their ever growing collection. Predominantly popular are period buttons representing assorted points in time. A button collector will consider of a button as a miniature work of art, each one diverse even though the design may be similar.

Since so much labor and materials went into the manufacture of buttons, they frequently were ripped from worn out garments. They were afterwards saved with the expectation of eventually being recycled. This practice has afforded us with many charming designs and samples of long forgotten buttons. Let's take a few moments to view some of the

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