Apparently we do! A great many of them! It is more frequent than we might like where we run into a collection of materials that we have little to no information about and that was not cataloged fully when it arrived. Such is the case with these 326 button dies.

And what I mean when I say cataloged is that the collection has been gone through thoroughly, with pictures of each individual die as well as a condition report. Research should be done on any markings or known makers, etc. When it was realized that this had not been done, we went ahead and pulled them and now have a wonderful volunteer undertaking the task for us.

This collection came to us in 1984 as a donation from the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, as they felt the maritime related buttons would better suit our collection. It was a small part of a collection that had been given to them by Waterbury Companies, Incorporated, although the dies were made by Scovill. Waterbury had them because when Scovill stopped stamping buttons, their materials were sold to Waterbury.

The button dies cover a number of companies and clubs.

Munson Steamship Line die

American Yacht Club die, cut by Adolph A. Hartmann, who was listed in the Waterbury city directories from 1890 to 1926, when he died. Below is an advertisement from 1890.

Button die with anchor design and S c S in center. If anyone knows what this button might have been for, please let me know. This one was cut by Camille L. Chapelle, who was listed in the Waterbury city directories from 1895 to 1922. Below is his ad from 1895.

Hopefully our cataloging efforts will reveal a great number of previously unknown tidbits about this interesting collection.