Original MC5 Button Revealed

Original MC5 "White Panthers" button on a jean jacket, where it belongs.

Detroit proto-punk band the MC5 innovated buttons in the 1960s and used them on their record covers.  A native Michigander contacted Busy Beaver Button Co. about his original MC5 button, and here’s his story:

The button was given to me by a girl I knew in the spring of 1969, when I was attending Pontiac Central High School (Michigan) and was deeply involved in the antiwar movement. I was the envy of all my fellow protesters as these pins weren’t that easy to come by even then.

Be sure to wish a happy birthday to the MC5 guitarist Wayne Kramer on April 30, the same birthday as Willie Nelson!  Awesome to hear this personal account of a historic button in action.

Click here for more information about MC5 buttons.

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Depression Era Celluloid Pins

Johnson Smith Buttons

A friend from Drag City Records in Chicago shared this awesome Johnson Smith Company catalog of buttons.  Busy Beaver Buttons collects the “Confucius says” pins made by the same company circa 1934 from Detroit.

Johnson Smith started in 1904 making novelties in Australia, moved to Chicago, Michigan, Wisconsin, and still does business to this day, over a century later, in Florida.

The catalog explains how buttons are an ice breaker:

These Buttons provide subjects for pleasant jokes an amusing conversation, and thus smooth the way to a more familiar acquaintance and cordial friendship.  They are very wittily worded and quite unobjectionable.  Wear one and see the effect.

Are these buttons icebreakers…or pick up lines?  You decide:

Slip it to me

It’s Right Here for You

Smile Darn You Smile

I am the Vampire Kid

Pretty forward-looking for 1930s pop culture, don’t you think?  What’s the 2009 version of these buttons?

Click here to read about Johnson Smith Company history.

Click here to order custom buttons from BusyBeaver.net

Johnson Smith Buttons

Pin out the Jams

MC5 proves buttons and t-shirts are not mutually exclusive.

Pin out the jams, brothers and sisters.  Record covers feature special appearances by buttons.  A personal favorite is the insert for Kick Out Jams by the MC5.

How did they button their bare chests?  And more importantly, where can an authentic White Panther button from Detroit circa 1969 be obtained?

Post-edit:  Original MC5 White Panthers button revealed  here.

Motor City Darlings, the MC5