Portrait of a Collector: Pat Wagner

Meet Pat Wagner, whose beautiful necklace earned second prize by popular vote in the Fall 2019 show. (We’re sorry we don’t have a good photo of Pat, but here is her necklace!) The competition was ‘right up her alley” because, in addition to 18^thcentury and early 19^th century  buttons, she has also bought and sold vintage clothing, jewelry, and beads.

Pat tells how, for 25 years, she worked on a farm raising race horses and going to auctions on the weekend. “In the late ‘80s I bought one of those small four-drawer chests, brimming full of buttons for $40. I spent the whole winter with the red book (the Big Book of Buttons). I still wasn’t a collector, just an accumulator. I didn’t belong to a club, didn’t compete. Then I met a collector. She went through every button I had and made piles. I didn’t know values, I didn’t know materials, I just  gave them to her. I have lots of regrets!” Though Pat has a transportation problem, she likes to collect antique clothing, beads – and 18th century and early 19^th century buttons. But not on the internet. “I like to touch and feel. I try to find people who say they have their grandmother’s or great grandmother’s buttons. If they have their mother’s buttons I am not even interested.”