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Set of Six Round Shank Buttons — Red with Gold-Tone Rim

Object/Artifact

Six round shank buttons of identical form. The face presents a smooth, slightly domed oval center panel in tomato red, recessed within a raised oval border inset with a continuous gold-tone metal ring. The overall profile is low and rounded. The reverse is red-painted plastic, molded with a central raised post from which a two-prong metal shank projects; the shank prongs are gold-tone and bent inward in the standard loop-and-clip configuration. The construction — a plastic body with a separately inserted metal rim — is characteristic of mid-century European decorative button production, widely distributed through Soviet-bloc haberdashery channels in the 1960s–1970s.

2025.1.395

Belonged to Gertrudis Caraballo Gálvez

Buttons of this decorative type — suitable for a blouse, dress jacket, or cardigan — were available in Cuba through state-run stores stocked with imported goods from COMECON trading partners, principally Czechoslovakia, East Germany, and Bulgaria. Sets of unused or lightly used buttons preserved in the home are a characteristic object category within the Cuba Material collection's scope.

The Cabrera Arús family collection

Gertrudis Caraballo Gálvez collecition

2025.1

Maker/Attribution: Unknown; no mark present. Construction consistent with Eastern European (tentative: Czechoslovak or East German) or Western European commercial button production. Date: Circa 1960s–1970s (tentative). Place: Unknown; likely Eastern Europe or Western Europe (tentative).

Six buttons

Plastic

Plastic body (likely cellulose acetate or early acrylic; fiber type unconfirmed); gold-tone metal rim insert (base metal with gold-tone finish, likely brass-plated or gilded); metal shank (base metal, gold-tone finish).

Good

Gertrudis Caraballo Gálvez

owner

Havana

Cuba

Caribbean

Central America

use