Buttons upon Buttons

Just spent the day with a good friend antiquing in Havre de Grace, Maryland – Lunch at a waterfront restaurant and slow strolls through emporium after emporium filled with gee-gaws, trash and and treasure. The last shop we browsed was a fascinating little art gallery filled with antique buttons – perhaps 10s of thousands of them, all for sale, any where from $1 to $250 a button.

Now the proprietor also had a bit of button “art”, let the beholder be the judge of the quality, but if you take into account how many buttons were on her artwork too, we are probably talking about 100s of thousands of buttons!  Needless to say, the variety and rarity of the buttons were outstanding, grapes and sea shells, flora and fauna, covered, brass and other shiney metals, glass and wood and bakalite (I don’t know if that’s correct but I am referring to the first plastics from the turn of the 20th century), and so on. From the teeny-tiny to too large to be functional, her collection was outstanding – and all FOR SALE. She has a website Art Pantheon which doesn’t do the store justice.

Any way, I was salivating in the store thinking of all the ways I could embellish this and enhance that. The amount of buttons were a bit overwhelming but I did manage to settle on a few glass ones – some for the snowman I’ve been working on lately and some, just because. If you are ever in the area, and enjoy an eclectic collection of buttons, this is the place for you! But bring cash or check, she does not take credit. That little policy probably saved me a boat load of money since I could buy up to what I had in my wallet!

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