Postage stamps. Postcards. Pinball machines. Troll dolls. People across Ohio — and the world — are drawn to collect a range of different items from the everyday to the extraordinary.
Since 1947, the Buckeye State Button Society has been a home for people with a passion for collecting buttons. Though small in size, buttons can represent many different styles, materials, topics and interests.
They’re fairly inexpensive to collect, too.
“I love it,” said Kit Campbell, the society’s president. “They’re art and history in miniature form.”
Enthusiasts from around Ohio and surrounding states gather to show off their collections and even engage in a little friendly competition for an annual spring show, which took place this year in Sugarcreek.
Around Ohio
The Buckeye State Button Society comprises about 100 members from six clubs stationed in cities around Ohio: Akron, Cleveland, Kirtland, Dayton, Zanesville and Hilliard.
Campbell, a resident of North Olmsted, stumbled upon the hobby after placing a bid on several boxes of buttons at an auction.
“I won, so I took them home,” she said. “This was something I knew nothing about, so I called Sotheby’s and they laughed and laughed and said, ‘Why don’t you just find a local button club and let them help you?’”
Campbell then discovered the Cleveland Button Club and her collection has been growing ever since.
“That was 2009, so I’m a newbie compared to some other people,” Campbell said.
It was the 1970s when Barnesville resident Ruth Smith received a bag of buttons from her mother.
“One night I dumped them out and knew just enough to know that I had some old ones,” Smith said.
Now 88, Smith is a longtime member of the Zane Trace Button Club of Zanesville, gathering buttons from various places over the past several decades.
“Flea markets, yard sales, auctions, old family members,” she said. “I went through everybody’s button box.”
Many collectors say they enjoy the treasure hunt of searching for old or even rare buttons hidden among hundreds of others. Perhaps even more, they love the camaraderie and friendship that comes with the hobby.
“I’ve been in it a long time and I think about the people I wouldn’t have known if I hadn’t got into buttons,” Smith said. “Some of my old friends have passed away and yes, I have buttons they’ve given me and they’re precious.”
Universal interest
Just about a decade before the Buckeye State Button Society got its start, the National Button Society was formed and held its first convention in Chicago in 1939. But the history of button collecting goes back much further than that, said the organization’s current president.
“As long as there have been buttons on clothing, there have been ladies and probably gentleman, too, that collected them,” said Vicki Condie MacTavish, President of the National Button Society.
MacTavish traveled from her home in Sebring, Florida, to attend the Ohio show with her daughter and granddaughter, who are also button collectors.
She said she doesn’t keep a running tally of how many buttons are in her collection, though she’s always eager to keep adding to it.
“I would venture a guess at 10,000,” MacTavish said. “And I might be surprised to find out there was more.”
She said she loves the historical aspect of button collecting, noting that there’s likely a button to commemorate most significant events throughout history.
“You could collect all the buttons from the different wars that different generals had, or you can collect buttons that maybe depict a certain historical event like centennials or when the Statue of Liberty was brought here,” MacTavish said. “You can look at artwork in a museum and I can guarantee you can go out and find a button with that on it.”
With more than 2,200 members from all 50 U.S. states and 16 countries in the National Button Society, MacTavish said the hobby unites people through friendship and a mutual love for preserving history.
“It’s a universal interest,” she said. “You can take this hobby and just do so much with it.”
