It’s funny, the things that aren’t buttons, but that nevertheless end up in button tins.
I had cause to rummage through a couple of my button tins and jars yesterday, looking for heart-shaped buttons for cat noses.
Other than buttons, this is what I found…
Best of all, I found something I wasn’t looking for, but that answers a recent prayer.
Needles with big eyes. Perfect for easier threading of an evening.
Amongst all this lot I also found a few memories…
Pocketing pebbles on holiday in Greece. Collecting marbles and swapping them with my sister. Buying wooden spoons in a Moroccan market many years ago and being given a seed head by the vendor.
And spending afternoons as a child rummaging through my nanna’s button tin. ♥
I think your Nana might have been the original owner of the lovely folding button-hook in picture 4, although I imagine she would have got it from her own mother or grandmother. A tin full of treasures!
Actually, I think that was a recent inheritance from my partner’s grandmother’s button tin! I have now inherited 3 button collections – my nanna’s, my mum’s, and my partner’s parents’ (some of the contents of which belonged to their parents)!
Oh wow, what a beautiful collection! Also…you have a button from HULL! I want a Hull button…being from Hull and all… very cool 😉 At least I’m assuming it is a button…
No, not a buttton – it’s the makers label from my grandmother’s 1920s blanket box, which was part of her bedroom suite. There was a wardrobe, tallboy, dressing table with stool and blanket box, all in dark oak. They were sold some years ago, but the blanket box collapsed into pieces before that and I kept the drawers (now under my bed storing linens) and that little round label showing the furniture maker’s details.
Aah I see! When I looked at it the second time I did wonder if that’s what it was! So rare to see anything from Hull…it’s really interesting!
My grandmother was from near Hull. She was born in 1897 and grew up in the village of Cottingham, later living in Hull on Anlaby Road.
After a bit of research I found that Maw, Till Kirke & Co used to be a large drapers shop situated in what is now Hull’s Register Office. The shop vacated the premises in 1937.
Here is a picture of where that little plaque originated:
Ooh wow, I live in Cottingham 🙂 It’s a nice place 🙂 fascinating to learn that your family is from here too! Thanks for the wonderful info!
I wish my button collection was bigger!
I love buying big tons of buttons at Carnot sales and always find some great little extras. Xxx
Mr kirke was an ancestor of mine. The shop appears to have been an early style department store. If you ever want to sell your ‘button’,i would love to buy it. A real treasure.