Life got hectic when I began self-publishing my story collections and novels from 2015-present, and then added pen & ink drawing into the mix 2018-present...buttons kind of fell by the wayside, but that doesn't mean I haven't continued collecting charmstrings and buttonstrings- I have been collecting. I've added some beauties to my collection in the past few years and spent this past weekend documenting charmstrings 88-105. My camera battery died after photographing just a couple of those strings, so I need to continue doing that. I also want to add additional close up pictures of individual buttons on previously posted strings- the more unusual and the most beautiful ones. I have a lot of work ahead of me still, but I hope to get started on catching up soon.
Meanwhile, I thank everyone who has contacted me through the blog and shared pictures of their charmstrings and their stories. I really do enjoy hearing about other strings that are out there and seeing pictures of them.
I will continue to track down and save as many strings as I can. My goal was one hundred, but I've surpassed that goal already.
I also appreciate the tips as to where to find other strings.
Button collectors, history lovers, hobbyists...what a great community of knowledgeable and interesting people!
Monday, February 24, 2020
Sunday, July 10, 2016
“To start…first tie a string to a large button”
by Terri Horton
Excerpt from California State Button Society Button Brief, Spring 2010
Reprinted with permission from the author
“Charmed, I’m sure”, “it’s charming”, “she charmed him”,
“charm school”, “prince charming”…the word “charm” has many implications. The Merriman-Webster
Dictionary gives us several definitions for “charm”—“1. An act or
expression believed to have magic power, 2.
Something worn about the person to ward off evil or bring good fortune,
3. A trait that fascinates or allures,
4. Physical grace or attraction, 5. A small ornament worn on a bracelet or chain”
and for “charming”—“greatly pleasing to the mind or senses”. [1] In the button collecting world, a charm
string certainly fascinates, could be thought to resemble a charm bracelet, and
definitely is pleasing to the mind or senses!
In 1939 one author wrote “Sixty years ago, small girls vied
with each other to see which could add the greatest number and most beautiful
buttons to a long string, known as a “charm”, “love”, or “memory” string. The idea was to collect 999, and the owner
would see her future husband. But woe
betide if inadvertently more were added, for that would be a fateful sign of
spinsterhood. There was also a game
called “touch button” in which the owner of a string of buttons would designate
in her own mind a certain button. If her
friend touched it the owner received the handsomest button from the friend’s
string.” [2] “The fad of making button strings started in
the 1860s…[and] remained popular until 1900”. [3]
In our button literature there are many references to charm
string-type buttons and to lore that surrounded creating a charm string, but
few about specific charm strings….
As Sally Luscomb says of charm strings in The Collector’s Encyclopedia of Buttons “To
start…first tie a string to a large button.”
It is wonderful to speculate about the strings we own, but even better
to know the real story. The historical
documentation by the Charm String Museum is a wonderful resource. At the time the above article was published,
I included a photograph of an identified young girl who is holding her prized
charm string and appears to be in bed, propped up on pillows. It is reprinted here with the permission of
the owner, The Thanatos Archive, in hopes that someone knows her story.
Thursday, May 26, 2016
A Hidden Letter
by Renee Comeau
Reprinted from the Summer 2010 California State Button Society Button Brief
Reprinted from the Summer 2010 California State Button Society Button Brief
A few years ago, I bid on and won a pretty velvet-lined
antique jewelry display case that had a charm string of buttons in it. The case
was from the Jane Ford Adams collection and our San Diego Button Club was
having a little auction of buttons. The inside of the case needed some repair,
so I put it aside to repair later. A longtime member of our San Diego Button
Club, Joan Helton, who seems to find just about anything in sewing notions and
material that a club member needs, found an old piece of velvet to match the
piece I needed to make the repair. Inspired one day to get off my duff and
accomplish some long overdue tasks, I started the repair. When I removed the
damaged velvet liner, I discovered some old letters hidden inside. The letters,
written in 1941, were from an antique book dealer in Tuscaloosa, Alabama
(Foster’s Book Shop) to Jane about an old Southern Charm String that he had
(and later negotiated by Jane to have him send it to her).
It seems that, in exchange for some books that Jane had sent
to him, he was prepared to send her the Charm String, but his mother was having
sentimental fits over the thought of him selling it or giving it away. The ‘charming’
letter, at one point in the text states “the Charm String has brought down dire
threats on my head, from no other person that My Dear and respected Mother, the
more I hear of this damn string of buttons. It was played with by her Mother,
most respected Lady, the wife of Capt. Martin, another illustrious Ancestor
that I have not lived up to and before that, my most respected Grand-Mother,
Magee. My Mother is a perfect dear and truly she does not get damn wrought up,
but the Charm String, it’s a bit too personal, perhaps not worth a darn, I don’t
know.”
And in the other of the two letters, “I certainly won’t
think of keeping your books and the Charm string has not disrupted the
house-hole [yes, ‘hole’ not ‘hold’]. Mother is not any sentimental idiot
either; she is and had been a collector all her life. I told you that this old
house was over-flowing with antiques and a little bit of everything else. She knows
not what I will bring home next. Anyway, I have persuaded her to allow me to
send the Charm string to you for appraisal, that’s fair, is it not? You see,
Mother’s Mother was a Magee, a sister of Pelham’s Mother, at least the darn
String should have charm, as this Sister started it long before the Civil War—enough
of this—the String is being mailed. We may be all wet as to the value. Neither of
us know one thing about it.”
In any event, finding the two hidden letters was really a
lot of fun, and the text of the letters really
delightful to read.
Friday, May 13, 2016
Where Have All the Charm Strings Gone?
History Corner--Where
Have All the Charm Strings Gone?
by Terri Horton, CSBS Historian
As I looked through the
California State Button Society (CSBS) scrapbooks last year, I noticed many
wonderful newspaper articles and photographs about button collectors “back in
the day”. At first I wasn’t very
interested in reading some of the “newer” scrapbooks such as those from the
1970’s and 1980’s because they are contemporary to my own life. However, I soon realized that many contain
stories about collectors who were born in the late 1800’s or early 1900’s and
were the little girls who made charm strings and later grew up to be the
pioneers of button collecting!
Charm String, Heart
String, Charm Necklace or simply Button Chain or Button String...I’d like to
share some of the interesting scrapbook threads I unraveled from these books,
and I hope that someday these clues might lead to “the rest of the story” about
this special form of button collecting.
A 1943 Los Angeles
Times article features a photo of Lillian Krigbaum wearing a charm string
of 1000 buttons. The article tells us that “mothers used to start the strings
for their daughters” and that, as we already know, these often became the start
of a collection that grew well past the traditional 999. Let’s see where some of these collections are
identified in more detail.
A San Gabriel Valley
area newspaper story from December 13, 1953 shows Mrs. Harry E. Walker, 80
years old, of San Dimas. She is holding
a “button string” estimated to be 100 years old. Mrs. Walker told the reporter that some of
her collection of over 5,000 buttons were from a charm string she had when she
was a child. She was a member of the Helen B. Moody Button club of Santa
Monica, Los Angeles Button club, California State Button Society and the National
Button Society, and began collecting in 1942.
Another photo features Mr. and Mrs. Walker, married 61 years, holding the
charm string. The caption indicates that
together they had over 10,000 buttons! Also
in the 1950’s scrapbook is an original photo given to the CSBS commemorating an
August 19, 1956 Los Angeles Examiner article (see attached). Mrs. Harry Walker is pictured among thousands
of buttons and when you look closely you can see that one of her lamps is a adorned
with a charm string! Mrs. Walker was
probably born in the 1870’s, and must have been a wonderful resource about button
history. It would be wonderful to know
where the charm string is now…Are there stories recorded anywhere else? Who is the new caretaker of the buttons?
Mr. and Mrs. Walker
A wonderful uncredited
clipping in the same book tells about former Corona mayor C. R. Miller who
owned what is described as “the probable world record button charm string,
which is over 50 feet long.” The story
goes on to tell about Mira Loma resident Mrs. Rosamond Watkins, seventy-nine, who
gave the mayor a two foot long charm string that she made when she was 6-7 years
old. She said that “in those days…the
girls used to sit on the “horse blocks” in front of their homes and trade
buttons. At that time, almost all of the
little girls her age pursued the hobby”.
A photo shows the mayor and Mrs. Watkins with her charm string. In the same scrap book, a January 18, 1953
article, perhaps from the LA Times, shows a photo of Mrs. Harry Ledig of Alta
Loma and her “button chain”. There is no
further information about Mrs. Ledig, so we are also left to wonder about the
history of her string.
Also in the 1950’s scrap
book we learn that the National Button Show was held in Long Beach in
1953. A photo included with that
memorabilia is of a young woman named Vicki Heinzerling. She is holding up a “heartstring of buttons
found at Ft. Ticonderoga in 1870. It
recalls a maidenly 18th century practice of stringing up to 999
buttons for the hope chest. Button No.
1000 being added with the matrimonial conquest of a colonist.” This is the first mention I have seen of the
term “heartstring” or the claim that this was a practice as old as the 18th
century! It is likely that there is some
journalistic error in the caption, as all other references I know of link the
start of this popular pastime of charm strings to the Victorian Era.
In a 1980 article about
the Goleta Valley Button Club I learned that 74 year old Chris Munter had
recently acquired a “prize possession”, “a button string, dating back to the
days when everyone took the worth of a button for granted”. Ms. Munter bought the string from a friend
who found it in her attic. Chris restrung
it but “pulled the most exquisite buttons for her competition displays”. Another article, from an unknown source in
1973, tells us that Bernyce Mahey from the Jacksonville area said her first “good
find” was a string of over 200 buttons.
She later acquired a string of 400 buttons, but lamented that she took
them both apart and that the value would have been greater if they were left
intact.
Other references tell us
about Helen B. Moody of Santa Monica.
She was a member of the Los Angeles button club whose “hobby started
when, as a Nebraska school teacher, her pupils rewarded her with “charm strings”
of buttons. She said, “I started to collect in earnest in 1912 when Dr.
Moody and I built our Santa Monica home.” Wouldn’t we all love to have a friend with a
treasure like that in their attic?! In
a clipping from 11/11/66 we learn of Mrs. Ray Adams who “possesses a charm string of
buttons, one of which is from a Confederate uniform of Civil War days”. Finally, a more “recent” newspaper article from
August 1991 says that “Members of the Sacramento Button Club really
buttoned on to newcomer Kay Meier after she showed them the 7-foot-long button
“charm strings” her husband brought home from an auction. Meier’s charm strings
are about 100 years old”.
The scrapbooks include some
out-of-state newspaper articles that also have references to charm
strings. The Denver Post in 1956
(?) mentions Mrs. A. C. Swainson, who “started her collection about 10 years
ago, using her grandmother’s charm necklace as the basis”. And The
Denver Post, 4/17/69 tells about Mrs. Louis B. Hough who “inherited a charm
string from her sister.” I wonder how
many of us have plans for passing down our own special buttons. Do those in our families know the history and
importance of our collections or will our strings and boxes and frames of
buttons be scattered and left unidentified and undervalued?
So, perhaps there are
names here that are familiar to you.
Maybe you were a member of the Sacramento club in the 1990’s and have
seen Kay’s charm string! After all, the
1990’s weren’t THAT long ago! Some of
the CSBS button “history” is still actually fresh in our member’s minds. However, do any of you know where the charm strings
of the past are? The 1940’s stories are
now seventy years old! I would like to
challenge each of you to share photos and stories of the charm strings that you
own. We have enjoyed several recent
stories in the Brief, but I am sure there are more out there. This might even be a fun local club
project. Let’s publicly document this
special piece of collecting history. If you or your club would like to share a
“charming” story, please submit it to the Button Brief editor. We are looking forward to your help in
untangling more button string stories.
Wednesday, May 11, 2016
Charmstring Stereoview
A Charming Imagination
When searching for stories about charm strings, I came
across this intriguing stereoscopic view of a string of 3,500 buttons. This picture, published by W. McLeish of
Syracuse, New York, represents “a collection… gathered by Miss Emma J. Brown,
of Truxton, N.Y.” during a two and a half year period. The description states that Emma was an
orphan and invalid, had been sick for four years and unable to walk for two
years. I thought it would be fun to try
to find out more about Emma J. Brown.
Could she be the young girl pictured in bed with strings of buttons
draped around her that was featured in a previous Button Brief article?
I decided to use the Ancestry.com family tree research
program to try to find Emma. Stereoviews
and charm strings were both popular from 1850 to 1900, so I searched in that
time frame. I also looked for a single
young woman who was orphaned and lived in the New York area. I thought that this would be enough
information to find Emma, but this became a task that was more speculative than
factual. When looking at the census
should I look for an Emma J. Brown
living in the household of someone of another last name such as an aunt or
grandparent, or had she been a servant in someone’s home before becoming ill. Maybe she was listed as a boarder, or perhaps
she was actually living in an orphanage or a hospital. If she had been a servant then that would not
be the girl in our previous photo. If
she was orphaned maybe someone sponsored her button charm string as a way to
pay for her medical care. Obviously I
became lost among a sea of Emmas and was unable to identify the owner of this
charm string, but it certainly was fun to imagine her story.
This button history search dead-ended, but we can help keep
the history of our personal collections alive through documentation of their
provenance. Whether you acquire one
special button or a group of them I encourage you to keep the personal string
of stories intact. Button collecting is
certainly fun, but it is also a means of preserving pieces of history. These details may not seem as important as simply
enjoying each beautiful button, but when brought together they can add to our
hobby by building a robust historical archive.
Don’t leave the story of your favorite buttons to the imagination…write
it down now!
This article is reproduced from the California State Button Society Button Brief .
Monday, March 28, 2016
Oklahoma Charmstring
Marsha Cassada has kindly decided to share her charmstring
"It is a small one, only 75 buttons. I found it in Mangum, Oklahoma a few years ago. I have never seen one in this part of the country before; Mangum is part of Old Greer County and belonged to the state of Texas before Oklahoma Territory was opened. I believe it belonged to an early settler. I took all the buttons off and cleaned them; a few of the metal ones were not salvageable. The string was in good shape, so I put all the buttons back on the string in the same order. Among items on the string were a little tin chair, and a Madonna and Child charm. In my military button book, I looked up the uniform buttons and they all dated from WW I or earlier. There is a penny with the middle taken out; I was hoping there was enough left to tell the year, but there was not. My favorites are the Kate Greenaway and the lucky swastika. There is also a nice hair button. I removed the little chair from the string and display it in my dollhouse."
Military buttons and good luck swastika
Little metal chair
Shell heart
Madonna and Child charm
Hair Button
Monday, February 29, 2016
Napier Charmstring
Laura Bullock has kindly decided to share her charmstring. It has a little over 200 buttons and was started by Flora Elva Congdon Napier, who was born in Vermont on July 7, 1875.
Hunt button
Black glass spider with carnival luster
Black glass dog's head
Grand Army of the Republic (Civil War veteran's association)
Small metal picture of bird
Painted metal
Black glass house with carnival luster
Liberty head coin -type
Large brass picture
Black glass bird
Small metal bird picture
Painted brass
Stamped Victorian brass
Black glass with shell inlay
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