People Profiles

Table of Contents
Linda Gibbs
Annah Mercier
Carrie Clarke

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She’s a big fan of old glass, especially ruby and cranberry glass, and cobalt blue glass. But she also likes diminutives, paperweights, black glass and picture buttons. As she continues to find new favorite materials, she looks for buttons with stars and moons, and horses and horseshoes.

As she was hunting more buttons for her collection, she had an interesting experience. "I had placed an ad in a "For Sale" magazine and a guy called me stating that he had his aunt's button collection and wanted to sell it," Linda said. "We drove to Timbucktu, down dirt roads, thought we'd never get there. His ‘collection’ was mostly 1930's and 1940's plastic buttons with a few good buttons and two button pictures with relatives names under the buttons, these had some good buttons on them."

Linda asked how much the seller wanted for the collection. "The upshot was that he didn't really want to sell them, he just wanted to know what they were worth. He said he had an antique dealer from Atlanta who was going to come and give him a value on them. I told my friend (an antique dealer) that I would love to be a bug on the wall when that guy drove all the way to this place and saw what this ’button collection’ amounted to."

But Linda is still looking for more buttons, she says. "I've always liked to go to flea markets and antique shops but now my focus is looking for great buttons. I go to North Carolina a couple of times a year and have found a "Button Lady" at a local flea market up there who has wonderful buttons. I asked her how she found them all and she said, "when people know you collect buttons they just come to you", I'm waiting..."

Button Bytes Light Profiles:   ANNAH MERCIER of Oxford, Massachusetts

Annah Mercier received a gift of a jar of buttons about a year ago. That was enough to give her "Button fever," she said. "I bought books, I read, I studied, I bought and bought and bought, I joined this newsgroup, and now I collect and sell."

Her favorite type of buttons are realistics, and as a teacher of 27 years, she’s particularly interested in school-related realistincs. "I like them because they are decorative and yet real. They say a lot about the person who wears them," she said.

She’s also looking for buttons that remind her of her four sons. "One is a US Marine stationed in Okinawa,in the intelligence field. The second is studying computers and learning to write his own homepages, the third is actively involved in ROTC and plans on attending Annapolis. The youngest walks in his oldest brother's shoes. All play soccer and are kept very busy.

Also concerned about her home, Annah is a selectman (woman) in a small town, and "I have a site on the internet, where I sell buttons, costume jewlery and pottery." She teaches high school English, and adds, "I have little spare time and when I do, I sit and then fall asleep."

Button Bytes Light Profiles:   CARRIE CLARKE of Garland, Texas

Carrie Clarke saw her mother-in-law’s collection of buttons and read through her button books and got hooked. Since then, she’s become particularly fond of bakelite, celluloid, china and colored glass buttons.

Her favorite buttons are a lacy glass button and an enamel button that her husband bought specially to surpise her. But that’s not the only time he’s given her a special gift. "My husband was in South Texas and stopped in a little antique store and asked if they had any buttons. They had about 10 jars and he bought all of them. I got some of my best and unusual butttons from those jars," she said.

Not only is her husband a great help in looking for the buttons, but her 4-year-old son also helps her to look through button jars to help with the sorting. He "gets just as excited as I do looking through jars of buttons," Carrie said.