Fourth of July Buttons Up!

July 4th 1909 Button For Mesa Arizona With Actual Fire Cracker Attachment

Let’s just say this historic button is literally, “explosive.”

Alex Winter from Hake’s Americana and Collectibles cited this button as a favorite in a recent interview about his collection, and it’s featured this weekend in honor of Independence Day!

The cultural artifact is dated 1909 from Mesa, Arizona with an illustration of Uncle Sam poking out of a frame of fireworks with an actual, explosive attached to it.

Can this rare button still blow up after 101 years?  There’s only one way to find out…

Alex Winter Buttons Up his Collection

Button Collector Alex Winter

Alex Winter is a life-long collector of “cultural artifacts,” and he works at the right place to acquire the most interesting and rare buttons— Hake’s Americana and Collectibles.

Alex shared hi-res photos of the most choice buttons, and answered these four questions about how he started collecting the pin-nable pop-culture relics.

Busy Beaver: Why did you start collecting buttons?
Alex Winter: I have been a collector of pop culture artifacts as long as I can remember. Even as a young child, I made sure I kept the boxes to my toys and never got rid of anything, no matter what. A pre-teen pack rat was not the norm among my peers, but was standard protocol among the elders I found myself in constant contact with.

I grew up around very serious collectors of all types of items, so rooms full of display cases showing off their treasures was what I exposed to from a very early age.

I found this extremely fascinating and soon became a rabid collector myself. This started with comic books in the late 1970s. Around the same time I really got into music, with Kiss becoming the first band I followed, and actually tying in with my love of comics as Marvel printed the first Kiss comic book in 1977.

Alice Cooper Flasher By Vari-Vue From 1977 Featuring His Trademark Face Make-up and Tipping His Top Hat

By the early 80’s I was a hard rock/heavy metal junkie and that is where buttons came into my life. My jean jacket became covered with buttons for AC/DC, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest and countless others. It was at this time that I got involved with collectibles as a business, going to and working at flea markets and toy shows. This greatly expanded the types of items I collected with new interests popping up all the time.

Figural Celluloid Eight Ball Pin Relating To War Time Production Of Aircraft “A Plane Every 8 Minutes”

I started collections of vintage material relating to superheroes, Halloween/skeletons, dice, eightballs, smiley faces and more. With each collection came pin-back buttons among many other types of objects. Then, in 1985,  I got a part-time job at Hake’s Americana & Collectibles. That opened my eyes to the collecting world in a life changing way and became my career (with 2010 marking my 25th anniversary with Hake’s).

Over the years I have had direct contact with tens of thousands of buttons and have seen some truly incredible pin-backs, along with so many others pop culture artifacts. Because of this, I collect buttons that appeal to me regardless of theme or genre. If it catches my eye it has a chance to make my collection.

Mephisto Tools Showing Satan Using A Hand Brace Bit Drill circa 1920s

My expanded list of collections now includes buttons featuring cats of all types, devils, civil rights/black panther party, St. Paul Winter Carnival, 1939 New York World’s Fair and unique buttons with attachments.

Busy Beaver: How many buttons are in your collection?
Alex Winter: I’ve never really counted but it is probably in the neighborhood of 500 or so. If I did not collect so many different types of things, this number would be higher, but I love paper, figural pieces and more, so I try to diversify my various collections.

Vintage 1970s  Advertising Button For Caravelle Candy Bars Featuring A Smiley Face

Busy Beaver: How do you store and display your buttons?
Alex Winter: Many are in riker mounts, others are in display cases mixed in with other types of items and then there are those that I wear, or remain pinned to the jean jacket I wore as a teenager (the Metal Gods won’t let me part with it).

Busy Beaver: What is your favorite button?
Alex Winter: Because of the diversity of my collection picking just one if very difficult so here are some of my favorites covering different themes-

Bostock Circus Early 1900s Famous Animal Trainer Real Photo Button

Dustbane Cleanser Advertising Button Featuring Black Cat circa 1910s

Los Angeles County “Crystoglas” Technique Button circa 1915 (one of only a few buttons to utilize the high cost process of colored foil papers beneath the celluloid covering and over the design embossed backing metal)

WW2 Era Uncle Sam “Let’s Pull Together” Hitler Hanging Mechanical Button On Original Card

Historic 1963 March On Washington Button From Day Of MLK Jr.’s I Have A Dream Speech

It’s a pleasure to see so many rare buttons from a spectrum of eras and topics, all in one collection.  You can learn more about what Alex Winter does for a living on Hake’s Americana and Collectibles.

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Mother’s Day Buttons Up

Button measures 13/16" and is the known only example. Courtesy of Hake's.

This weekend, people across this great nation scrambled for cards, flowers, and cakes to commemorate important women in their lives.

While many people believe Mother’s Day is a Hallmark invention, it’s actually a holiday catalyzed by suffragettes like Julia Ward Howe, and established in 1915 by President Woodrow Wilson.

Buttons represent historically relevant events, and this century-old button evidences the implementation of Mother’s Day almost a century ago.

In case you are still looking for something for the mommy who has everything, click here for this rare button.

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Environmentalism Buttons Up

Collection of 1970s-era environmental buttons. Photo courtesy of Hake's

Buttons are wearable messengers, and there is a variety of ways to express a single message graphically.

Pictured is a collection of 1970s-era environmental buttons formerly owned by Foster Pollak of New York, currently available on Hake’s Americana and Collectibles.  The 29 buttons are mostly the 2.25-inch size closely associated with activism for it’s “big but not too big” dimensions.

Colors, pictures, and words vary on each button with slogans like, “I’m a Watt Watcher,” “Bag Your Trash,” and “I Love a Clean New York.”

And while they all associate to a single environmental theme in different ways, the collection itself is a unified expression of a single person’s passion.  Click here for more info.

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Hake’s Americana & Collectibles Buttons Up

Wiley Post commemorative buttons. Photo courtesy Hake's Americana & Collectibles

You may remember Hake’s Americana & Collectibles from the button collection interview with the founder, Ted Hake.  Now his inventory of amazing, historic, and rare buttons includes his own promotional 1.5-inch buttons made custom by Busy Beaver Button Co.

Check out Hake’s for collectibles like the Wiley Post button featured above.  Behind every pin-back is an amazing story:

In 1931, Wiley Post flew around the world in the airplane “Winnie Mae” with his navigator Harold Gatty.  In 1933 he repeated the trip but this time did it solo.  This button is likely from July 22, 1933 when 50,000 people greeted him at flight’s conclusion at Floyd Bennett Field in New York.

Two years later, Post and his passenger the famous humorist Will Rogers, were both killed in an Alaskan plane crash. Button is Exc. and displays Mint. We’ve seen only 2 or 3 examples in 40 years. Comes with Hake’s COA. (G – $100 to $200)

Wow.  Check it out here!

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Author and button collector, Ted Hake

Ted Hake started collecting buttons in 1948 when he was five years old and an antique dealer friend of his mother’s gave him a small, gray cardboard box.  Its contents pinned a passion that later founded Hake’s Americana & Collectibles, America’s first auction house devoted to popular culture collectibles.  Mr. Hake is kind to interview with the Busy Beaver Button Blog about his extensive button collection, company, and books.

Inside the box, a young Ted discovered the 1918 era World War I Liberty Loan and Community Chest contributor’s buttons from his hometown in York, Pa.  Soon his childhood collections grew to encompass “coins, matchbooks, stamps, comic books, fossils, Indian artifacts, baseball cards, and found objects from [a] local dump like a 1939 New York World’s Fair milk glass bottle that once held Virginia Dare vinegar.”

Foremost authority on celluloid pin back buttons Ted Hake and his book

In 1960, his decision to collect buttons came to fruition when a favorite local coin dealer had a customer who wanted William Jennings Bryan presidential campaign buttons from the three losing campaigns of 1896, 1900 and 1908.  Mr. Hake saw the beauty in the antique buttons, and found “their colors, graphics and history absolutely fascinating.”

Coin albums that once cataloged identical objects grew to contain “variety and relative rarity…mysterious and un-catalogued small gem-like historical artifacts.”  Hake was hooked as a collector and while at the University of Pittsburgh and New York University his hobby evolved into dealing in presidential campaign items, all types of buttons and eventually in 1967 the founding of Hake’s Americana & Collectibles.

Hake’s Americana & Collectibles contains a catalog with thousands of vintage buttons in all categories and from all time periods from 1896 to now.  Click here for the website.

Inventory includes the estate of Marshall Levin, without doubt the world’s foremost button collector before his death in 1999.  “For forty years Marshall canvassed New York City button makers, trade shows, parades and protests amassing an incredible variety of old and new issues. Marshall preserved a remarkable slice of American history, documented by buttons.”

How are the collectible pin-backs stored?  Mr. Hake uses glass covered cases known as Riker Mounts for storage and warns, “Some frames come with cotton rather then synthetic liners.  The cotton will absorb moisture in high humidity environments causing the button backs to rust while the fronts show no damage.  Second, if cases are stacked, a lot of weight can build up and buttons with ink on metal (without a celluloid or acetate covering) may adhere to the glass. When popped free, paint may stick to the glass and come off the button.”

Ted Hake's Favorite Button

And the personal collection of Mr. Hake?  He focuses on “pre-1950 buttons with great color, interesting graphics or association with some famous event, person or character.”  Because he is very selective, his collection is “around 1000 buttons or so.”

Pretty soon, shipments of the Hake’s Auction Catalog will include his own custom 1.5-inch button produced by Busy Beaver Button Co.

The cover of Ted Hake’s book Collectible Pin-Back Button 1896-1986 features his favorite buttons.  When asked to select a number one, he writes, “It would be the 1908 Long Beach Festival of the Sea button.  After all, how many buttons feature lettering formed by sea snakes?”

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