http://www.woolworthslimited.com.au/page/Who_We_Are/The_Woolworths_Story/How_We_Were_Founded/
The ‘Woolworths Stupendous Bargain Basement’ opened in Sydney in December,1924. By 1959 the 300th store had opened. I have found buttons included in their advertising from early on.
In The Sun (Sydney), 19th April 1928. You must have really gone through buttons to need to buy a gross!
The Telegraph (Brisbane), 2nd April 1930.
Truth (Sydney), 5th January 1930.
The West Australian, 17th November 1930.
The Sun (Sydney), 8th August 1935.
The Telegraph (Brisbane), 10th August 1939.
The Sun (Sydney), 13th March 1947.
The Sun (Sydney), 24th July 1952.
The Sun (Sydney), 22nd October 1953.
News (Adelaide), 21st July 1954.
Warwick Daily News (West Australia), 8th July 1954.
Examiner (Launceston), 24th June 1954. Like Coles, they sold cards of Australian made buttons. It looks like the same printer that Beauclaire used for their cards also produced those for Woolworths. Most likely Beauclaire, then later Beutron (after the takeover in 1957) produced their buttons . Certainly some of the post decimal ‘Sew’n’Save’ Woolworths’ cards have ‘by Beutron’ printed on them.
Ditto the Hi-style cards.
The triangle logo with the W and stars within it dates from 1957 when Woolworths started opening combined food and variety stores. This logo continued in use until 1967.
The Canberra Times, 28th September 1967.
These 3 are from Lois.
The Moonglow line was replaced by ‘Sew’n’Save.
The Canberra Times, 16th April 1969.
From Carol’s collection.
The Woolworths ‘Chevron’ came into use in 1972.
The ‘Big W’ logo dates from about 1976.
From Carol’s collection. What a fussy design!
From Lois.
BOILPROOF:
‘Boilproof’ were a fashion line of Woolies buttons.
The Newcastle Sun, 8th August 1946.
Although the card on the left is not labelled with the Woolworths name, the script for the word ‘Boilproof’ is the same,the design is the same, and the backs are printed identically.
From Lois’s collection.
HI-STYLE: Another fashion line from Woolies. They have quite stylish card design.
Again, like the ‘Boilproof’ buttons, these Hi-Style from Carol’s collection have the same printing on the back as Beauclaire buttons.
An older version of ‘Hi-Style’ from Lois.
And…. the same styling as these ‘Moonglow’ buttons.
KIDDIETONE:
A line of children’s novelty buttons. Love the hand painted squirrels below:
Although these are labeled as ‘Kiddietone’ this rabbit design can be clearly seen in the 31st May 1954 ‘Woman’s Day and Home’ magazine ad for Beauclaire ‘Tiny Tots’ buttons (see advertising page).
SPARES:
The first three cards have the same cute sketches of clothing (although it’s harder to see in white) so they must be from Woolworths too, even though they are not labelled that way. They appear to be a line of plain, spare, work-a-day buttons for clothes such as PJ’s, shirts and overalls.
Thanks to Carol F. for this picture.
You can see that some ladies sewed the buttons on over the art work, and some tried to leave it uncovered.
MOP buttons. I wonder if they were from Australian shell?
From Helen’s collection.
GRANDWAY:
Grandway was a Woolworths line. ? 1970s-1980s buttons.