Blog — history

We get great feedback from beekeepers, farmers and gardeners about our silver and bronze bee jewelry. The Victorians LOVED botanical scenes and insect adornments. Honey bees and beehives, beetles and dragonflies, flowers and butterflies of all sorts were the subject of many buttons in the 1860s.  Here are a few of bee and insects from our button collection. Bees and insect are also the subject of several plates in our 1941 book, Button Classics, an encyclopedia and pricing guide. We have cast several of our most treasured bee and garden buttons in sterling silver - check out our bee and flower jewelry made...

Have you heard of a Wunderkammer? A Cabinet of Curiosities? These delightful and quirky collections have their roots in the 17th century. In 1611, an English naturalist and head gardener to the 1st Earl of Salisbury, John Tradescant, was sent to the low countries to collect fruit tree specimens. In 1618, he travelled to the Nikolo-Korelsky Monestary in Arctic Russia, and to the Algiers and the Levant in the 1620s, returning to the Low Countries - this time on behalf of the Duke of Bukingham. He passed through Paris, went to the Île de Ré off the coast of France. Upon...