button hunt

I used to collect buttons until I found out there were rules involved. Several years ago after buying a big batch of mother of pearl buttons at an antique show I wanted to know more about the buttons and joined a button collectors club. I lasted about a year and a half--nice group of women but the rules involved in sharing your interest were beyond my capabilities and so was the price range these women were dealing with at this stage in their collecting careers.

Saturday I went to Southbury CT to shop the vendor showroom at the Northeast Regional Button Association's Annual show. I had been to this show when I was a practicing collector, 8 years ago. Then it was overwhelming to walk into a meeting room filled with buttons, everyone talking about buttons, boxes full of 9" x 12" cards full of buttons and tables filled with boxes! I was totally absorbed in the hunt and unwittingly aggravated the tendonitis in my shoulder by looking at all those cards of buttons, every last one of them. The circumstances mystified my orthopedic surgeon who obviously wasn't a collector.

Yesterday when I finally found the Crowne Plaza at exit 16, not exit 11, not exit 14 or 15 I was greeted by one of my former button collecting mentors at the door. Once inside the familiar room it was much less stressful to be looking for buttons for resale. I said I wasn't a collector for 2 hours or so, then I saw a button that awakened my acquisitorial spirit: an ugly worn wooden button shaped like a squished stump. What else? A log button! (See the ugly one on the lower right of the picture!)



I happily hunted my way around the room in search of more log specimens, tucking manila envelopes full of buttons for resale into my bag for a few hours and then had to concede that I was buttoned-out, just couldn't look at another one. Packed it in and headed south on Connecticut's leafy route 25, I was still absorbed in button euphoria. Well, not exactly euphoria, maybe two steps below euphoria. I would have been euphoric if I found these buttons along the roadside and paid nothing for them, but...

Log specimens examined---