button show

It takes alot to get me overwhelmed when shopping, yet I don't think I have ever been more so than this afternoon. My sister, Peggy, called around 11am and asked if I had read the morning paper (we do get two "mornings", saturday and sunday) as there was an article in it about the National Button Society Convention being held here in GR which was culminating in a sale being held today, from 10am to 3pm. (Being she and Cathy were to have saved my mom's button box for me and didn't, I believe they have made a pledge to somehow, someway try to make this up to me yet in this lifetime!). So, having a few free hours I was out the door and downtown by noon. There were more than 50 vendors (including one from England and another from Italy), amazingly alot of men. Anyway I have to say - I didn't even know where to look first. There were boxes and bins of buttons to pick through ranging in price from twenty-five cents to ten dollars a "pick". And buttons assembled on cards into quite specific categories and from what I saw priced anywhere from $3 apiece to one which was $2000! There was a booth which had an ingenious necklace you could put a button on to wear which could be changed out very easily, and a few with bracelets. I purchased a bracelet made from small gold metal buttons (and mine which I made last winter from mother of pearl buttons, that I was wearing, admired by the woman I bought from which was nice), and a few more expensive (for me - as I certainly did not purchase anything over $20) buttons to use on the necklace I also bought. Then I could just do no more, there was just too much and I knew too little, so I perused the hundreds upon hundreds which had been judged and had to leave - even before the 3pm deadline!

I met a couple very nice women from the GR chapter of the Michigan Button Society who urged me to come to one of their meetings. And in talking to a few vendors and a sponsor of the show and telling them how overwhelmed I was told me if I'd never been to a button show before, this was the mother of all shows and that they even get overwhelmed - and they are serious collectors. I would like to learn more, read up on types and value and all as I think I would enjoy collecting (selectively). They are so beautiful and some of the antiques just so very exquisite and intricate. When I look at the treasures I did bring home I see they are all metals (I thought each one would be interesting to use on the necklace, and so pretty) - guess that's as good a place to start as any!

I do have thousands of buttons, most of which I hoard to use in my art which have been picked up at flea markets, yard sales, and junk shops, given to me by friends - I love them all! But today I witnessed a whole other level and it was pretty darn amazing.