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Button Shanks / Backs

Whether the buttons we fall in love with have beautiful or silly designs, they don't often tell us much about when the button was made, or what the material is. For the first few issues, we'll focus on learning more about what the backs of buttons can teach.

A Look at Horn Buttons

Dogs love trucks, as the recent television ads claim. They also love to chew things, and one of their favorites are cow hooves. So keep them away from your horn buttons, because they actually contain the same material as the hooves!

Front and back of two yellow horn buttons with inlay.

Horn buttons have been made for hundreds of years. At first, the horns were simply cut and drilled as people looked for easy ways to use commonplace substances for clothing buttons. But in the 1800s, it became more usual to boil animals’ horns and hooves, and turn the resulting gelatinous goo into large sheets that could then be stamped with designs. Since horn is light in color, it could easily be dyed various colors. Many of the common black buttons that beginning collectors threw into a pile of boring black buttons may actually be horn.

An example of a red-dyed horn button, front and back.

An unusual three-hole button, front and back.

The other nickname for horn buttons is "Pickback" because the molten mixture was easily poured into forms, but as it cooled, it would stick to the mold. For that reason, the makers needed to use picks to pry the buttons loose, leaving a tell tale hole in the back of the button.

Two more horn buttons with marks of picks on their backs.

Horn buttons are relatively inexpensive, and can be found in many colors, including a "blond" yellow color, red and black. They are usually sew through buttons, with either a self shank type of "hump" or quite frequently, they are made as whistles. Some buttons also have applied round, dome-like shanks.

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