Family Buttons

 Earlier this year, my husband Nick's grandmother died. She was nearly 100 years old. I didn't have the chance to meet her, but a few weeks ago we went to her house in Poughkeepsie. I was given a large collection of family clothing, buttons, sewing notions, etc. dating from the late 1800s up to about the 1940s. I will eventually share photos of the clothing, but wanted to start out with some wonderful button pictures. 

Beautiful antique buttons with metal cutout design, on the original card.

Among these was a box full of shell buttons, which became very popular in the 1800s, and continued into the 20th century. It's interesting, because there are a lot of shell buttons in this collection, and some plastic made to look like shell buttons, which date from post 1930s. My friend Gina has a YouTube channel of her online museum that talks all about these buttons and how they were made. She has a delightful video about them - please take a look!

A selection of 19th century buttons: pressed glass, perfume and others. Perfume buttons were metal with a bit of fabric beneath, and women would put perfume on these buttons.  

Look at these beautiful buttons.

The top half of this photo shows the shell buttons. A lot of them are plain, but there are a few that are decorated. So lovely!

White carved shell buttons. 

I'm impressed (and excited) by how old a lot of these buttons are. There are also several 20th century buttons, a lot of them on cards (maybe I'll do a follow-up post about those). There are also belt buckles with a deco look, probably dating from the 1930s and 1940s. The others  

Look at these wonderful belt buckles!