The Buckeye State Button Society show comes to Sugarcreek
Doris Scott, left, and Pam Fouts with a few of the buttons in their collections.
The Buckeye State Button Society and the Zane Trace Button Club will host the state button show, A Garden of Buttons, April 5-6 at the Carlisle Inn in Sugarcreek. The showroom will be open to the public April 5 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and April 6 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Admission is $5, and children under 18 are free. The show will feature button displays and button dealers.
Button collecting began at a time when people were looking for an inexpensive hobby. Now others have gotten into button collecting accidentally.
When Pam Fouts of Gnadenhutten found her great-grandmother’s button collection, she just wanted to know if it was worth anything. She went to a meeting of the Zane Trace Button Club in Zanesville, and the more she learned, the more she was hooked on button collecting.
“So instead of selling buttons and getting rid of her buttons, I’m buying and collecting more buttons,” Fouts said.
One of the more interesting finds in her great-grandmother Clara Glass’ collection included buttons that appear to be signed by baseball great Cy Young. Fouts hasn’t had the signatures authenticated, but it’s highly possible they are legit.
“She lived down on River Road, which is only about 3 or 4 miles from Cy Young’s home,” Fouts said. “If you look online at his signature, they look a lot alike.”
Doris Scott’s interest in buttons began as a child. Scott is from Newcomerstown and always enjoyed looking at her grandmother’s button collection.
“Then my dad would go to auctions and bring me home tins full of buttons. You could buy them really cheap back then,” Scott said. “I like sorting them and just playing with them, and then a friend of mine got me to join the Zane Trace Button Club. And from then on, it was like a disease. I think we’re all bit by the button bug.”
The shows are a good way to learn about and see more buttons.
“You’re always going to see something different. No matter how many buttons you have, you’re always going to find a different one. That’s just how it works,” Scott said.
One time Scott made a stop at an antique store and found a card of buttons for $10.
The card appeared to contain rubber buttons adorned with images of women’s heads.
“When I got out to the truck was when I realized in the very center of that card, there was an Uncle Tom button,” Scott said.
The button featured the face of Uncle Tom from the book “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” by Harriet Beecher Stowe. Scott flipped the button over, and it said Uncle Tom in raised letters.
“They are so rare that you hardly ever see them,” Scott said.
Although she was unsure about selling it at first, when another collector learned of the Uncle Tom button and traveled from out of state to purchase it, a transaction was made that earned Scott a large sum.
Both Fouts and Scott have gone to auctions, flea markets and antique stores looking for buttons to add to their collection.
“I’ve got them on eBay or Etsy,” Fouts said.
Because it’s hard to see what you are getting online, she sometimes doesn’t receive what she thinks she’s getting. “But that’s OK because I can sell it to somebody else,” she said.
Many men also are button collectors and like to collect Civil War and military buttons.
Aside from the shapes and designs that make buttons so popular. Buttons can be made from a variety of materials. Celluloid was the first plastic-like material and was created in 1869. Later, other plastics were used like the very collectible Bakelite.
Other natural materials were used in the 19th century including tortoise shell, horn, cloth, wood, mother-of-pearl and vegetable ivory, which is made from the tagua palm nut grown in South America. Other types include glass, enamel, leather, bone, antler and semi-precious stones. Many forms of metal have been used to make buttons too. Buttons were first used as fasteners in the 13th century.
As part of the show, collectors can enter decorative boards called trays of buttons to be judged at the show. The judging is based on classifications in The National Button Society’s Blue Book. Buttons are placed on the 9-by-12 matboards for competition. The trays of specified types and sizes of buttons will be displayed at the show.
In addition to Fouts and Scott, Donna Young of Gnadenhutten also is a member of the Zane Trace Button Club.