Button A button is a fastener that joins two pieces of fabric together by slipping through a loop or by sliding through a buttonhole. In modern clothing and fashion design, buttons are commonly made of plastic but also may be made of metal, wood, o ...

collecting The hobby of collecting includes seeking, locating, acquiring, organizing, cataloging, displaying, storing, and maintaining items that are of interest to an individual ''collector''. Collections differ in a wide variety of respects, most obvi ...

may refer to the collecting of various types of buttons. This article refers to the collecting of clothing buttons. Button collecting varies widely. In its most informal manifestation, a button collection may simply be the

household A household consists of two or more persons who live in the same dwelling. It may be of a single family or another type of person group. The household is the basic unit of analysis in many social, microeconomic and government models, and is i ...

button container, where buttons are stored for future use on clothing or for

crafts A craft or trade is a pastime or an occupation that requires particular skills and knowledge of skilled work. In a historical sense, particularly the Middle Ages and earlier, the term is usually applied to people occupied in small scale prod ...

. At the other end of the

spectrum A spectrum (plural ''spectra'' or ''spectrums'') is a condition that is not limited to a specific set of values but can vary, without gaps, across a continuum. The word was first used scientifically in optics to describe the rainbow of colors ...

is the competitive collector, mainly found in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

. Th
National Button Society
serves as a forum for collectors to build information about the history of buttons and for annual collector competitions. Regional, State and local button clubs meet regularly as well. In between these two extremes exist casual button collectors, who accumulate buttons for sheer enjoyment and relaxation, as well as for their functional value.

History of button collecting

An early collection of military buttons was assiduously gathered by Luis Fenollosa Emilio in the United States. He began this collection around 1890, and donated it in 1908 to the

Essex Institute The Essex Institute (1848–1992) in Salem, Massachusetts, was "a literary, historical and scientific society." It maintained a museum, library, historic houses; arranged educational programs; and issued numerous scholarly publications. In 1992 th ...

in Salem, MA (now the

Peabody Essex Museum The Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) in Salem, Massachusetts, US, is a successor to the East India Marine Society, established in 1799. It combines the collections of the former Peabody Museum of Salem (which acquired the Society's collection) and th ...

). During the Belle Époque in Western Europe, there was an interest in collecting small

antiques An antique ( la, antiquus; 'old', 'ancient') is an item perceived as having value because of its aesthetic or historical significance, and often defined as at least 100 years old (or some other limit), although the term is often used loosely ...

, which included buttons. Notable button collections were created in this period. A serious collector from this period was M. H. R. D’Allemagne of Paris. He documented key items from his collection in his three-volume ''Les Accessoires du Costume et du Mobilier'' (1928). After his death, his collection was purchased by an American collector and made its way to the United States. In the late 1800s, young women in England would accumulate glass buttons on a string, and it is said that when there were 1,000, she was ready for a suitor. Button collecting became more organized in the late 1930s in America. The first known serious button collector in the US was Gertrude Patterson, who spoke about her collection on Dave Elman's ''Hobby Lobby'' radio interview show in 1938. This show featured one hobby per weekly episode. Even earlier, Otto C. Lightner started ''Hobbies'' magazine in the 1920s, and in 1938 sponsored a hobby show in Chicago, in which button collectors were involved. Factors like these led to a surge in others collecting in a focused way. There were large quantities of buttons available at that time, enabling this trend. The inexpensive nature of buttons made them affordable, even during the Great Depression. Lillian Smith Albert was one collector who documented her collecting efforts in her first and second volumes of ''A Button Collector's Journal (''1941). This new area of collecting required not just accumulating buttons, but also researching them. In order to further button collecting and research, th
National Button Society
was formed in 1938. The society has developed a classification system for buttons used for competition, but also useful for collecting. Collectors began to gather at shows for educational programs and to have access to the many buttons for sale. The first NBS show was held in Chicago in 1939, followed in the 1940s by shows put on by newly formed state and regional clubs. These shows continue through to the present. Books began to be published on the topic, and a magazine was started in 1944 and continued to 1979, ''Just Buttons'', edited by Sally Luscomb. ''Button Lines: The Journal of the British Button Society'' began publication in 1976, just before ''Just Buttons'' ceased publication. ''The National Button Bulletin'', the publication of the National Button Society, began publication in 1942. These periodicals provided an opportunity for an expanding number of collectors to share their research in a manageable way. In the July 1942 issue of ''The National Button Society Quarterly Bulletin'', Mrs. Peter Pastor wrote:

The most satisfying phase of button collecting, however, will be the study which each button affords as to material or identification of subject or design. It entails the perusing of volume after volume of history and art and costuming; dating a button by shank or material; researching for characteristics of buttons of various countries; and reading about the styles that created these various types of buttons.

Equipment

The following materials are recommended when starting to collect buttons. * Storage containers: Ventilated boxes that will not rust the way that metal tins will. * Mounting cards: Non-acidic, 9" x 12" if entering buttons into a competition. * Awl: To punch holes in mounting cards. * Plastic-coated wire: For mounting buttons onto cards. Sold by dealers in collectible buttons. * Trays: These are special frames designed to hold a card with buttons mounted on it. * Magnifying glass: To view details, 10x is a good magnification. * Magnet: To test for steel buttons. * Metal polish or jeweler's polishing cloth: To clean metal buttons, used with care.

Acquiring buttons

New collectors often begin with button boxes or jars from their own families or from friends. Buttons can also be found at antique shops and shows, auctions, fabric shops, garage sales, thrift shops, and advertisements in button society magazines. Buttons might also be found in sewing boxes, on uniforms and other clothing, and in jewelry boxes. Excellent sources for buttons are button collector gatherings, such as national or regional shows, and meetings of button clubs.

Buttons in museums and galleries

Some

museums A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make these ...

and

art galleries An art gallery is a room or a building in which visual art is displayed. In Western cultures from the mid-15th century, a gallery was any long, narrow covered passage along a wall, first used in the sense of a place for art in the 1590s. The lon ...

hold culturally, historically, politically, and/or artistically significant buttons in their collections. London'ts

Victoria & Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...

has man
buttons
particularly in its jewellery collection, as does the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...

in Washington, DC. The Cooper-Hewitt National Museum of Design in New York, a division of the Smithsonian, has many buttons from the

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD ...

forward. The Strong Museum in

Rochester, NY Rochester () is a city in the U.S. state of New York, the seat of Monroe County, and the fourth-most populous in the state after New York City, Buffalo, and Yonkers, with a population of 211,328 at the 2020 United States census. Located in Wes ...

also has a large button collection. The

Corning Museum of Glass The Corning Museum of Glass is a museum in Corning, New York in the United States, dedicated to the art, history, and science of glass. It was founded in 1951 by Corning Glass Works and currently has a collection of more than 50,000 glass obje ...

in Corning, NY has many buttons that are viewable on their website, and also numerous button-related items in their library. A specialized button museum is th
National Pearl Button Museum
in

Muscatine, Iowa Muscatine ( ) is a city in Muscatine County, Iowa, United States. The population was 23,797 at the time of the 2020 census, an increase from 22,697 in 2000. The county seat of Muscatine County, it is located along the Mississippi River. The lo ...

, the "Pearl Button Capital of the World" in the early 1900s. A button museum within a museum is th
Waterbury Button Museum
in the

Mattatuck Museum The Mattatuck Museum is a cultural institution based in Waterbury, Connecticut, USA. The museum's displays include the history, industries and culture of Waterbury and the Central Naugatuck Valley area, and art, including works about the state's hi ...

Waterbury, CT Waterbury is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut on the Naugatuck River, southwest of Hartford and northeast of New York City. Waterbury is the second-largest city in New Haven County, Connecticut. According to the 2020 US Census, in 202 ...

. Buttons have been manufactured in Waterbury for over 200 years, first by hand, then by machine. The Keep Homestead Museum in Monson, MA has "one of the largest collections of antique and vintage buttons on display in the U.S," with a
online archive
of a number of their buttons.

Collecting specialties

Collectors have many possibilities for specializing in the buttons they collect. They might decide to focus on buttons made of a particular material, buttons from a particular time frame, or buttons featuring a particular subject. Those who are interested in exhibiting their buttons competitively in regional or national shows in the United States follow the classification system contained in the National Button Society's ''Blue Book: Official Classification Competition Guidelines''. Buttons exist in a myriad of materials, including fabric and cloth, metal, glass, ceramic, enamel, natural materials such as wood, bone, or shell, a number of types of plastic, and more. Collectors of buttons by time frame might collect them from a particular century, 18th or 19th, for example, or may be more specialized still, such as acquiring those buttons manufactured during the reign of

Queen Victoria Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 216 days was longer than that of any previo ...

of England. Hat Buttons

Those who collect buttons by topic might specialize in bird buttons, flowers, animals, insects. or virtually any topic of interest. Another type of collecting specialty is by the type of use the buttons saw. Examples are

uniform A uniform is a variety of clothing worn by members of an organization while participating in that organization's activity. Modern uniforms are most often worn by armed forces and paramilitary organizations such as police, emergency services, ...

buttons and non-military uniform buttons. Studio buttons, those made in small quantities primarily for button collectors, are another collecting area.

Collecting and competing using the classification system of the National Button Society

This classification system is used by collectors who enter and who judge button competitions in the United States. But it is also useful for all collectors who would like to choose specialties or organize their collections. The classification system defines important components: * Divisions, such as old (pre-1918), junior (ages 13-17), or related specialties (such as

buckles The buckle or clasp is a device used for fastening two loose ends, with one end attached to it and the other held by a catch in a secure but adjustable manner. Often taken for granted, the invention of the buckle was indispensable in securing tw ...

/clasps or button covers) * Size The classification sections are divided by * Material type, divided very precisely by particular features of buttons of that material; * Pictorials, again divided very precisely; * Features or Types, such as borders, shapes, or

inlay Inlay covers a range of techniques in sculpture and the decorative arts for inserting pieces of contrasting, often colored materials into depressions in a base object to form Ornament (art), ornament or pictures that normally are flush with th ...

* Age (18th century or earlier) * Usage All of these guidelines are very precisely laid out in the National Button Society ''Blue Book'', issued periodically and provided to society members. Some button dealers use the classification system when organizing their buttons for sale.

Organizations

There are numerous local, regional, and national button collecting organizations. National organizations include th
National Button Society
(US), which lists their purpose as "Educating, enjoying and preserving all that is beautiful and historic in buttons," th
British Button SocietyFibule
(France), and th
Dutch Antique Button Society
(Netherlands). Links on the websites of some of these societies will lead to regional and local button organizations and clubs. An example i
The Victorian Button Collectors Club
(Melbourne, Australia).