Page 13 - May2008

66 THE NATIONAL 'BuTTon BULLETIN

Original store card of cow leather depicting
branding symbols. Cut design with pyrography (burned)

Below is a partial list of animal hide buttons you
could use on a tray of assorted leather.

MAMMALS BIRDS REPTILES FISHES AMPHIBIANS
Cow Ostrich Snake Stingray Frog
Lamb Chicken Alligator Shark
Pig Crocodile Eel
Kangaroo Lizard Various fish species
Deer
While leather is also obtained from animals not on this
list, these are the most available ones made into buttons. It Fish skin, commercially
would be a fun challenge to find buttons of the less common sold as "Sea Leather."
hides such as frog, eel, fish (available in a multitude of fish species, also called
"sea leather" or "aqua leather"), and various birds such as chicken and ostrich
(identified by the "goose bump" look of large feather follicles).
• RAWHIDE Most animal rawhide is unsuitable for buttons with the exception
of snake, lizard, shark and stingray. Rawhide is a hide that is stretched and dried
without chrome tanning chemical methods. The thin delicate hide of snake and
lizard is presoaked in a solution of glycerin and alcohol before the stretching and
drying process to provide a soft and flexible skin.

Shagreen: Oddly, this most desirable and elegant of leathers is technically a
rawhide. Sharkskin (usually used for Div. I buttons) and stingray (usually used
for modern buttons) are commonly called shagreen (derived from the French
word chagrin). This fine leather has adorned boxes, dresser sets and other luxury
items owned by royalty and the wealthy since the 17th century. The popularity
of shagreen was revived during the late 1800s by Arts and Crafts artisans in
England and the U.S. who became famous for their use of the hide technique in
their creations.
Those wishing to use the hide soon gave up the idea of processing it them-
selves when they realized the difficulties. Their results were often uneven or had
surface cracks. They turned to importing sharkskin prepared in China, where
preparation methods still remain a secret to this day.
The difficulty of creating shagreen lies in the surface of the skin, which is
covered with rough small bone-like pointed bumps called dermal denticles.
The denticles are deeply embedded in the surface of the skin and composed of