Posted 8 years ago
betweenthe…
(70 items)
This is my late 1800s button charmstring. The legend back then was that if a young woman collected 999 buttons, her Prince Charming would appear. I acquired it from a seller who knew its provenance, and it seems that Flora Elva Congdon Napier's prince arrived early as it only has a little over 200 buttons.
I shared photos of this charmstring with a wonderful site: http://charmstringmuseum.blogspot.com, if you'd like to see more photos than just the four posted here.
The wolf's or dog's head button could very well be the touch button, the button that started the charmstring. The GAR button in the third photo is Grand Army of the Republic, a Civil War Veterans' organization.
I collect antique buttons and have most of them on cards now, but I've considered making my own charmstring although my prince arrived 16 years ago!
I've never heard of a button charm string. What a nice history!
What a neat story . I never heard of it either but I did collect buttons and still have them in a huge 5 gallon bottle I guess I could make quite a long one . I do have buttons that were attached this way and still are but I think in my case it was a way to keep track of buttons from getting lost as they they tended to put all the same one's on the string . Cool post :-)
Thank you, martika, Efesgirl, aura, Manikin, and mareredware. Manikin, be careful about the way different materials are stored together with respect to your buttons. I discovered that some materials aren't compatible and can lead to deterioration.
Such a great post. Thank you!
Thanks so much, racer4four.
Thank you, Hunter, valentino97 and lisa.
Thank you, SEAN68.
Thank you, AnnaB and Celiene.
How cool is that! Thank you for the great story too!
Thank you, bijoucaillouvintage. Much appreciated. :)
Thank you, Karenoke!
Thank you for the love, Agram.m.
Thank you for the love, officialfuel!
Thank you for the love, Trey.
These are really special and amazing! How do you tell the age of the buttons? I have a collection of buttons someone passed on to me, but except a general feeling that some of them are old and some are old-er, I wouldn't know their age even approximately.