People Profiles

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"I didn't know that there were other people out there that liked buttons," Debbie said. "Boy was I wrong."

After seeing them on the computer, and learning from Button Bytes, "I kept coming across them at the flea markets this past summer and got hooked," she said. "They are so pretty, and so different. There's a lot to learn about them and maybe that's my real reason (for getting so hooked)."

Debbie’s best buys so far have been blue... Two great Gay Nineties for $.50 each, and a blue calico with a metal rim. Her favorites are the small chinas, and moonglows.

She’s adding to her collection quickly, but still wants more, like all the rest of us. But she’s having fun. "How many do I have -- not as many as I want to have!" she said. "but I'm getting there."

Debbie’s husband of 32 years (a high school sweetheart) "puts up with my boxes of stuff all over the house," she said. That house is a stone house built in 1760 for a well-to-do Baltimore family. Now, it’s a work in progress.

She’s got two children, a son of 25, and a daughter, 24, living in Florida. She’s got a few pets, a golden retriever, which she bred and showed, and three cats. In fact, Debbie’s email address of CALICO comes from her calico cat, NOT the buttons!

Button Bytes Light Profiles:   CLAUDIA CHALMERS of Maple Grove, Minnesota

"I began collecting buttons when my mother inherited her mother's collection," Claudia Chalmers said. "I was eleven years old!"

Growing up with buttons made a lot of memories for Claudia. "One of my first button memories is of pawing through "poke boxes" at a national convention in Iowa. My father and I accumulated bags of little black glass and Victorian metals for our allotted $20.00. We were flabbergasted when my mother rejoined us having bought only one button, but having spent her entire $20.00! In the last 27 years I have far surpassed my twenty dollar allotment... over and over again."

She doesn’t really have a favorite type of buttons, but jokes "My favorite type of button is always the next one that I can't afford," she said. "Seriously, I have begun to enjoy competition, and so I am often looking for buttons that can fill several categories. I look primarily for pictorials, and if they are particularly old, or of an unusual material, I like them all the more."

Claudia dreams of finding "a delicate Eighteenth Century, handpainted something." But, she adds, "It will only fulfill my fantasy if I find it in an old button box. I enjoy the ‘search’ for hidden treasure almost as much as the ‘find.’"

Her best find so far was a card of six Aritas. "I found them at an antique store among cards of West German glass. I paid $2.00 for the card," she said.

In addition to her love of the buttons themselves, she’s also been getting a lot of pleasure from working with the buttons. Buttons "provide me with several creative outlets," she said. "I hand-draw button mounting cards and make Fimo and woodburned studio buttons. These side hobbies help me support my button habit and have helped me meet and correspond with many other collectors across the country. My husband is the most supportive man on the earth. He doesn't collect buttons, but he has learned enough to ask me the right questions. I am so lucky to have him!"

Claudia is competition chairperson for the Minnesota State Button Society, but she admits she still has a lot to learn, especially when it comes to the National Competition Classifications. "Right now my club is having difficulties with the distinctions between bubble top and tight top celluloid. It seems that even the judges can't agree! This type of button is not particularly my cup of tea, but I would like to help out the club."

Please give Claudia a hand by posting feedback, and the information will be made public! - ed.

Since then, she’s tried to limit what she collects to "assorted materials, diminutives, vegetable ivory, and Japanese porcelain." She believes the "small and diminutive buttons have so much packed into so small a package."

As an anthropologist, Susan said she enjoys buttons related to cultural activities from around the world. "I also collect cats, rabbits, and yellow glass," she said. "Also Japanese metalwork, mosaics, and pietra dura buttons make me drool."

But her current mission is to find all variations of china stencils.

She’s been lucky a few times, but the best one was when she found the "Satsuma Seven Gods at an estate sale for $15. The bag included 3 other small Satsumas as well," she said. "I still breath fast when I think of it."

As far as the number of buttons, she estimates about 3,000, and is continuing to add to her collection as an active member of the Kansas State Button Society. "I have learned a great deal from the people that I have met through the group," she said. "Traveling to state and National shows have given me a chance to see buttons I could only read about."

She’s also eager to learn more about "Native American made buttons."

If you have any information on these buttons for Susan, please send feedback, and we’ll post it in the next BBLight! - ed.