Unpopular opinion: my grandma's button tin taught me more about old brands than any app
I finally sat down and sorted my grandma's old button tin last weekend, and I dumped them out on the kitchen table in Minneapolis to count. I had about 120 buttons total, and 14 of them still had the maker's name stamped on the back, like a brass one from Waterbury Button Co. that I traced to the 1890s. I went into it thinking they were all junk from old coats, but it turns out the backs are a whole record of when clothes got made and where. Does anyone else collect buttons and know a good way to date the plain ones?