Page 38 - October1997

220 NATIONAL BUTTON BULLETIN October 1997

If your preference in button lies in Div. I, this urticle is.for you.
If'vou sinrpl,- like a challenge, this article is.fbr wu
For this article v'e reached back thirtv-seven reurs into some back issues ofthe
National Bulletins and came up u'ith this: Metttl enbecltled in gltt.ss. So complete
was the studr that went into it that rye are reprinting it yerbutim escept fbr
additions of.finds in some categories.
II/e are indebted not only to the source o.f the article (Buckeye Statel but to otu'
editor ond to Helen Ryan./br supplving the buttotts that v'e nru.t' of/br it in living
color.
-Claire Garritv
Embedded Yellow Metal Trim
A Popular Type of Ornamentation for Charm String Glass
By H.CampbellScarlett
Drawings by Mary Sheldon Long
Note: This effort is an extensive revision and expansion of an article, "Metal
Embedded", which appeared in the April 1960 number of the BUCKEYE
BULLETIN. The perpetrator wishes particularly to acknowledge his indebtedness
to Mrs. Long, not only for her admirable drawingso but also for her whole-hearted
co-operation in the preparation of the original articleo and to thank Mrs. Jane F.
Adamso Mrs. Lillian S. Albert, Mrs. Harold P, Eby, Mrs. Walter F. Heintzelman,
Mrs. Jean Kasemel'er, Mrs. Robert H. Lawson, Mrs. S. James Leahy, \,Irs. Thomas
J. Lloyd and Mrs. Percival Seyler for their generous contributions of data, loaned
buttons, good advice and encouragement which made possible this more
comprehensive version.
When the manufacturers of "chann string" glass mixed up a batch of buttons,
they could not top off their confections with just any of the delectable oddrnents
which might catch their fancies, as a candy maker could crown his bonbons with
r.luts, raisins or bright red cherries. The temperature of the plastic glass in the process
of being molded would have destroyed most nonvitreous r.naterials which might
otherwise have suggested themselves as trimming. Certain metals alone could retain
both shape and color when pressed into the hot, soft glass, and of these certain
inexpensive metals came handiest to the button makers. (ln n-rost cases the alloy is
undoubtedly brass but, since the specific composition can in no case be determined,
the cautious button collector must now settle for the niggling, but more inclusive and
exact, term "yellow metal".) Preformed omaments of this material and of a twisted
wire of sir-nilar appearance were therefore often used as an effective means of
varying the standard all-glass designs of swirlbacks and other charm-string types.
OfThand it might mistakenly be assumed that the possibilities of variety within
the group of buttons so decorated would be limited to the color variations of a few
familiar pattems. Such an assumption would fail to take into consideration the button
makers' well known ingenuity in drearning up different combinations of the
elements of decoration available to them. Color variations constituted onlv one of