A digest of buttons and stories shared in August 2016:
Kencrest buttons were distributed by David Kennedy, warehouseman, probably in the late 1950s- early 1960s. Note the American spelling, color, despite this being an Australian product.
Leda buttons were made by General Plasdtic and distributed by Walkers from the late 1950s.
Baby MOP buttons.
1950s Buttons and their representaton in an ad.
Beutron daisy buttons.
Detail from 1952 ad.
‘Atomic’ buttons!
‘Atomic’ artwork from a 1957 button catalogue.
Beutron Opal-Glo buttons.
Maxart.
From Lois’s collection.
These show how Beauclaire styles were used for Embassy (and Woolworths) brands.
3 examples of the same style in different sizes and colours, and on 3 different styles of Embassy cards.
4 glass Beutrons. The yellow one has a modern, almost fluorescent tone. Unlike the white ones, they are not set in a metal base. The gold edging is just a thin line. The pink are over the top feminine. But it is the card on the right are dyed pearl-shell even though they are on a card that dates them from the early 60’s. Beutron may have been using old stock inherited from General Plastics from before the merger.
The “Permaloid’ buttons look identical to Beauclaire ‘Superglow’ examples. The middle buttons are unfortunately age-stained but of a new style for the collection. The orange are another example of the translucent pastel plastics popular in the Leda range.
Astor faux leather buckles from 1970s.
Unusually large diametre holes.
New Zealand Buttons:
Unofficial military button:
The words ‘Australian Forces’ appear under a KIngs (Tudor) crown.
This is a “Rising Sun” button. Yes, a button rather than the well known badge. Versions of this design have been used for the Army’s badge since 1904, although the rising sun element appears as early as 1858 on tokens, and even earlier as a symbol used by Australian organisations. See these links for more information.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rising_Sun_(badge)
http://www.diggerhistory.info/pages-badges/rising_sun.htm
As ‘diggerhistory’ explains, the design was sometimes used on unofficial buttons. This example is rather battered, including a soldered repair on the back. It was probably clamped to enable the repair, which dented the top and bottom edges! It has no makers back-mark. The crown shows considerable wear from polishing, so it was well used.
Carol has also found an example:
Irridel:
If you’ve perused the vintage Beutron advertising, you’ll remember that In the late 1940’s they marketed ‘Irridel’ buttons that matched the colour of lighter or darker fabric due to their opalescent nature. A newspaper article showed the origin of this type of plastic:
The Argus, 9th December 1939.
So, many years before Beutron used it, Irredel was a type of American plastic used to make jewellery. Beutron imported the formula to Australia to make the buttons. The name borrows from the earlier “Iridill”, the name of a type of glass produced by the Fenton Art Glass Company from 1908. This was the glass that became known as ‘Carnival glass’. It was a very successful product for Fenton, with popularity peaking in the 1920’s and waning into the 1930s.