Who would want to keep a pile of old buttons? It’s a valid question with an easy answer. In the past buttons weren’t mass-produced like they are today. It took someone with skill to craft a button and there was a lot of work involved. Because of this, you might have thrown away your old jacket, but you definitely would have kept the buttons. Before you knew it, the buttons on your son’s new jacket were a hundred years old and suddenly worth keeping.

Collecting old buttons can be a neat way to securely fasten a bit of history into the present day, so to speak. There are some avid collectors of buttons.  There are as many different types of buttons as there are people who’ve used them. (Not quite- but you get the point). There are metal buttons, ivory buttons, wood buttons- even buttons made of vegetables.  The vegetable buttons were made from the tagua nut and considered the “environmentally friendly buttons”.

There are buttons that were used in the military called “military buttons“, cloth buttons, glass buttons and even shell buttons. There are so so many different styles, types and materials used in button making that it seems almost endless. What an amazing journey for the button collectors who take this stuff very seriously.

One especially beautiful type of button that I love is the Moonglow Buttons. These buttons are made of glass and usually have some sort of design in them. Moonglow were introduced to us from West Germany around 1953. You don’t see a lot of these much anymore since a lot of the glass buttons have been replaced by plastic ones.  A Moonglow button has some clear glass colorless glass over the top of each one.  Some people still have these made for them from W. Germany.  These come in all kinds of shapes and sizes and really neat to look at.  Can you imagine using glass buttons on our clothing today?

Wood buttons, another popular button, made from a variety of different type woods.  There are what seems like endless types of buttons to collect and button types.   Your button collection can be full to the brim with beautiful and different buttons! But what do you have?  How rare is it?  What is it made from?  How do you sort your collection? Lots of research out there on various buttons, styles and types which include a little history on their makers.  Well worth checking out some of the links below related to buttons.

I definitely  can understand the  avid button collectors out there, these are some beautiful little pieces of artwork and history!

Here are some resources for our button collectors

Antique Button Collecting

Button Collecting A Life Time Voyage Of Discovery

Alana Morgaine

Our Vintage Buttons