The bulk of my collection is my general presidential pinback collection. Political buttons as we know them were first used in the 1896 election between William Mckinley and William Jennings Bryan. I collect pins from the 1896 to the 1960 Presidential elections with an emphasis on those produced...
General Presidential Collecting
Campaign Button “Restoration”: cleaning, polishing and repair
Restoration of collectibles is controversial to say the least. In the sports card field there have been some very high profile examples with fraud accusations and litigation; most related to freshening the edges but some have even challenged cleaning without disclosure. Fortunately our hobby hasn’t reached that level of...
Thoughts on Regional Scarcity of Political Campaign Material; “fish where the fish are”
Benny Brandvold MD Before eBay, collecting in “the wild” meant what you found depended on what was originally distributed in the area or was transplanted as families relocated. No one understands regional campaign item scarcity more than a locals collector; imagine trying to put together a Massachusetts locals collection...
The Market Made Simple
Lately, there has been quite a bit of grousing and consternation on social media about the state of the market and the overall health of our hobby. There seems to be concern about a perceived decline in prices in general and an almost as strong a concern or...
“Unique” and Near “Unique” Presidential campaign pins
In hobbies like stamp and coin collecting “never before seen items” virtually never come into their respective hobbies. They are invariably print or strike errors and are “priceless” ie. above the pocket book of all but the wealthy. In political collecting, items from earlier elections that have never been...
“Beat ’em to a Frazzle” A New Teddy Roosevelt Pin Comes to the Hobby
A remote Eastern Washington auction house posted a number of political button lots to eBay’s live auction site. One of the lots contained a 1 3/4″ Theodore Roosevelt pin I had not seen before. The photograph posted did not allow a zoom option and glare precluded discerning its text....