Hollow Domed Button

A handsome and versatile hollow tin button, copied from one in the Museum of London. The original was found in a context dated 1270-1350, but the archeologists thought it might be intrusive (i.e., later than that). Hollow buttons are fairly common finds; we own a number of them, also unreliably dated. You can see in each the pair of holes that let the metal in – and out – of the button “shell.”

We first saw the original when Dress Accessories was published in 1991 – which means it took us nearly thirty years to make. Like the exemplar, it is slush cast – we pour the metal into the mold, a shell of tin freezes, and we pour out the still-liquid center.

These are tricky to make: a difference of a second produces a casting that is too heavy or too light, and the time needed changes as the mold heats up. The button would weigh ~10 grams if it were solid, but the finished hollow buttons weigh only half that. You need not worry about knocking your teeth out when you put on a cote with these beautiful large, round buttons.

The flip side, of course, is that they are more delicate than a solid button would be. We do recommend line, rather than tumble, drying any garment you put them on. The round part of the button would not be damaged in the dryer, but the loop might get pressed down. The examplar in the museum of London is flattened, and to see if we were on track with size and decoration we flattened one of ours – but we had to stand on it to do it.