# clam shells with drilled holes



## madman (Nov 28, 2009)

found some of these while digging a foundation there were mixed in with bim shards any ideas??????


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## madman (Nov 28, 2009)

reverse


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## GuntherHess (Nov 28, 2009)

pretty common source for buttons in the 18th-19th centuries.
 It might be of interest to early button collectors. Normally that part doesnt survive.


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## cyberdigger (Nov 28, 2009)

That's pretty cool, Mike!! I bet Matt is right, and a button freak would buy that!


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## ancientdigger69 (Nov 28, 2009)

matt hit it right on the button... no pun intended.

 what you have are blanks from the making of shell buttons. these are harder to find than the buttons themselves. i have a few in the collection. we find them made of clam here in the midwest and oyster on the east coast. very cool find!!!!

 thanks for posting it!!!


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## madman (Nov 28, 2009)

wow thanks guys for the info! guess ill keep em   mike


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## cyberdigger (Nov 28, 2009)

Mike, you should look around for a set of buttons that fit the holes, that might be a cool little display..[8|]


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## madman (Nov 28, 2009)

one last pix


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## Little Wing (Nov 28, 2009)

tomorrow if my lungs stop feeling like i have TB i'll take some pictures of my buttons that are made this way. you can easily discern they are punched from a shell. never found a shell like that though.


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## madman (Nov 28, 2009)

little wing id love to see them hope ya feel better!


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## surfaceone (Nov 28, 2009)

Hello fellow Nacrian fanciers,

  Shades of La Belle Epoque, Charlie. The Edwardians, Gibson Girls, Hobble skirts and a growing population must have increased the demand for pearl buttons. earls and the inside layer of pearl oyster and freshwater pearl mussel shells are made of nacre. Many other families of mollusk also have an inner shell layer which is nacreous, including marine gastropods such as the Haliotidae, the Trochidae and the Turbinidae...Chief sources of mother of pearl are the pearl oyster, freshwater pearl mussels, and abalone. Also widely used for pearl buttons, especially during the 1900s, is the shell of the great green turban snail Turbo marmoratus." From Wikiville. Maybe Plumbata can help with the 'dae' translation. There's photos of superb examples of an alter, and powder horn from earlier eras there.







 I think that fresh water pearls were the primary crop with the shells being secondary. 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




 "William Salter, who, in Peoria, Illinois, in 1872, dug several tons of clams and sent them to Europe for assessment as to their possible commercial value, is credited as being the first commercial clammer. Some years later in Germany, John Beopple obtained some of these shells. Knowing only that they came from somewhere about two hundred miles from Peoria, he saw an opportunity for himself in the future. He immigrated to the United States in 1887, heading straight for Petersburg, Illinois, where his sister was living.
 He began searching for quality mussels and ended up in Muscatine, Iowa, which would become the center of pearl button making for 40 years. Beopple is credited with being the first American button-maker to use fresh-water shells. He developed some tools and borrowed a friend's (Henry Grau) lathe to start the business, which grew rapidly." The above 2 photos and text from this excellent Harvesting the River site.












 Images, and more history with a  Muscatine focus here.

 But let's not forget all the other river towns and especially Texas' Great Caddo Lake Pearl Rush of 1909.

 Charlie, I dug a couple pieces like yours just a couple weeks ago, but they were in a wet layer and going all chalky. Thanks for putting up this thread.


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## cyberdigger (Nov 28, 2009)

That is an amazing post, I mean WOW... but this is Mike's thread.. []


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## surfaceone (Nov 28, 2009)

Geeze Charlie, so sorry Mike,






 I stuck my foot so far in my mouth, I crashed my computer.


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## cyberdigger (Nov 28, 2009)

[][]


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## madman (Nov 28, 2009)

great info surfaceone,  awesome  ive dug many of those buttons over the years thanks   mike


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## LC (Nov 29, 2009)

This is a neat post Mike , I had never seen the blank where buttons had been punched out before , that would be well worth hanging onto . Clams and conch shells and other varieties of shells have been used for art work and other things for a long time . Here is what I think is called a conch shell , thought you might want to see it . What a gift one has to be able to do this kind of work with their hands . I have seen clam shells as well as conch shells with carvings of women in colonial dress and other styles over the years here and there . I have not seen any of them for a long time , they are probably pretty well gathered up by now .


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## LC (Nov 29, 2009)

Back view


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## LC (Nov 29, 2009)

From the bottom .


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## Plumbata (Nov 29, 2009)

I've found a handfull of those digging dumps, and bucketloads along certain riverbanks northeast of Peoria. I guess it depends where you are, but I don't consider them to be particularly hard to fnd. Fascinating, yes, but unless it is a particularly large and interesting specimen I doubt they are worth much at all to anyone who knows about them. Since one valve made multiple buttons they certainly are more scarce than the buttons (duh) but they are also far easier to spot. I bring them home when I dig them, but when you see literally hundreds of them in a short section of riverbank your interest level can evaporate extremely quickly. Still, nifty finds man. I am sure they will be conversation pieces for hundreds of years, and in time may be sold as indian artifacts, if that is not already being done at present.

 Might be able to con 5 bucks out of an unsuspecting old lady who collects buttons? 

 surfaceone, i think it is -idae, and probably doesn't mean much aside from being a taxonomic marker of whatever it is being a class or subclass of the category represented by word preceding the suffix, or something like that??


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## capsoda (Nov 29, 2009)

Maybe they were just doing brain surgery trying to save the little buggers. But if it failed it was clam chowder and buttons for everyone. []


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## RedGinger (Nov 29, 2009)

That's really neat Mike.  I would definitely keep those.  I've never dug any, but I always keep the buttons I find.  Someone told me they're good luck.


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## cobaltbot (Nov 29, 2009)

That's pretty cool Mike.  When I was researching my Welsh cottage basement finds I read alot of stuff on midwest shell button companies.


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## madman (Nov 29, 2009)

thanks guys for all the replies! i will keep these, also thanks for all the info, this forum is awesome!


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