Share with friends & family!
  Holey Buttons! 
  • Home
  • Button Resources
  • About
  • Contact
  • Blog
  • Florida State Button Society Show
  • National Button Society Membership
  • History of Buttons on USB
  • Button Poetry
  • Cute as a Button Book Instruction Sheets

HoleyButtons Blog


Welcome to my Blog! I hope you enjoy my posts! I'll be writing about buttons and ways to enjoy them.

Email

Testing for Jet

4/8/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture
As many of you may know, the most popular button of the 19th Century was the black glass button. It is said that they were made for the masses in response to Queen Victoria's use of black jet buttons as her mourning buttons — following the death of Prince Albert. Jet is made from fossilized evergreen wood and terribly hard to come by, so mourning button knockoffs were made from hard glass coal, horn, rubber and vulcanite.


The following tips for identifying have come from an article at https://www.thespruce.com/identifying-and-testing-jet.
  1. Jet will be opaque black in appearance and will not have mold lines, so the first test is to inspect it visually.
  2. It was also hand carved so no two pieces will be identical.
  3. Most jet was highly polished, but pieces made for first mourning will be matte black.
  4. Natural jet will be very light in weight in comparison to French jet, which is actually black glass.
  5. It will also be room temperature rather than cold like glass. It's also interesting to note that jet will not scratch glass, but glass will indeed scratch jet.
  6. Test by scraping an inconspicuous area on a rough surface like the back of a ceramic tile or the bottom of a piece of unglazed porcelain. If it leaves a brown mark, the piece is likely jet (although vulcanite can also leave a brown mark, so be sure to look for other jet attributes before making that call). 

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Sylvia Liszka Durell, Author

    Owner of HoleyButtons.com and a founding member of the Hernando County Button Collectors Group in Florida.

    Archives

    May 2022
    December 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    August 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    September 2019
    August 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    December 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

    PINTERESt

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly