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Set of Twelve Square Shank Buttons — Cream/Greenish with Gold-Tone Accents

Object/Artifact

Twelve molded plastic shank buttons in a rounded-square (“cushion”/squircle) form with a raised square central panel surrounded by a channeled border, crossed at top and bottom by paired gold-tone bars that read as a stylized buckle or strap-and-ring motif. The body is an opaque cream/ivory plastic with a distinctly cool, slightly greenish cast. The gold-tone elements are inlaid metallic strips (or metallized plastic) set into molded channels. The reverse is gold-tone (metallic-finished), molded with a raised central self-shank pierced for thread and impressed with four small diamond/lozenge marks arranged around the shank — a decorative or registration feature of the mold. The construction (molded plastic face with applied gold-tone trim and an integral self-shank, gold-finished reverse) is consistent with mid-to-late-twentieth-century decorative garment buttons of the kind distributed through haberdashery channels, including the Soviet-bloc imports that supplied Cuban mercerías.

2025.1.396

Belonged to Gertrudis Caraballo Gálvez

Gertrudis Caraballo Gálvez collecition

The Cabrera Arús family collection

2025.1

Maker/Attribution: Unknown; no maker’s mark present. Construction consistent with mid-to-late-twentieth-century European commercial button production (Eastern or Western Europe). Date: Circa 1960s–1980s (tentative). Place: Unknown; likely European import (tentative).

Twelve buttons, all of one matching design and color.

Plastic

Good

Gertrudis Caraballo Gálvez

Owner

Havana

Cuba

Caribbean

Central America

Acquisition, use