Marcia Raymond
I find it exciting to discover the source of a button in my collection. I recently found where my openwork pewter covered bridge originated.
George and Christina Bauer of New Hampshire had a jewelry business and at their customers’ requests began making buttons in 1945 to match their jewelry. Their button and jewelry making business was run as a cottage industry. Mr. Bauer took the buttons from worker to worker, where each performed their specific task before the piece moved to the next worker’s home.
The Bauers used pewter with a low lead content so that it does not tarnish and sixty different cast pewter buttons were designed by Mrs. Bauer. They bear the initials “Chr” on the reverse.
Just Buttons Magazine of April 1971 tells us that the Bauers also made fourteen buttons designed by others (no “Chr” back mark appears on these): an openwork covered bridge, openwork sailboat, old Ford, exterior shell, interior shell, turtle, maple leaf, snowflake, Mayflower ship, rooster, horse head, pony, kitten and owl. My one-inch button is one of the latter—it has no back mark.
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