It is Wednesday again, so it's BUTTON DAY on my blog. It would be great if you could do the same; make your Wednesday a button day too. Have you seen a lovely, beautiful, stunning, crazy button or button-related thingy, or did you make something with a button / buttons, or did you even make buttons yourself, blog about it on your blog on Wednesday, and give the link here via Mister Linky at the end of this post.
Many coins were made into buttons. If the dates of the real button coins are a criterion (some dates go back to the 17th century), this is already a very old habit. The face side of the coins is the front of the buttons, and a shank was soldered onto the reverse side. This can still be seen in the traditional men's costume from Zeeland in The Netherlands; the men wear trousers with a flap in the front, and the flap is closed by large silver coin buttons; often 18th century old silver guilders or English coins. See this lovely old postcard from my own collection:
Later in the 19th century, small silver USA coins were made into buttons for use on men's vests and given to young men reaching their 21st birthday, the so-called "Freedom Buttons". The earliest silver buttons made by Native Americans in the American Southwest were made from silver coins and they were often used as currency too.
Metal buttons made to resemble coins were made in the 20th century; they are often Austrian in origin, and they are very popular in Bavarian and Tyrolean traditional costumes. These buttons have blank backs (see the picture below). Some coins even depict antique Roman and Greek coins. I only have some fake coin buttons in my collection, but I must say that some are really pretty.
And here two lovely DIY's for coin buttons:
Craftzine: Coin Button
curbly: DIY Coin Buttons
!!!!!!!!!! If you have something for The Button Wednesday, give Mister Linky your name and the link to your button post !!!!!!!!!!!!!
3 comments:
They remind me in one way or another to my childhood in Switzerland ...
I had a wintercoat with such buttons when I was little !
:) Nice !
As Zsasza said, there are some Swiss German costumes with these kind of buttons, but not sure if they're coins...hmmm...I got to review Swiss history :p
What an interesting post P8! Thanks for the history!! :)
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