Abstract Though this theme of the eagle and stag is listed as a standard button motif, I have no idea what the fable is that is depicted! This button is a bright, very shiny brass piece folded over a different back with yet a third independent piece forming the shank. Help?! BBB shows a similar motif in an apparently smaller button (Plate 154 #27), and for #5 on Plate 153 describes the following story from Pilpay. A stag led his family on the search for food and water. As the land became unfamiliar,...

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Identical with the Goldbarg button of the same dimensions, except that this one shows only the bright brass color. See my comments there. Like that, this has a patterned design on a separate metallic back with a self shank. Might this be an exemplar of the modern reproduction?

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Here a brass-colored band seems to be folded over the hook-bearing celluloid back and the bronze and black metallic front of the button. The stork has its long beak in the vase while the fox looks on. Apparently in the same set as the two 3/4" FS buttons. Apparently #16 on Plate 152 in BBB.

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A really striking button! As Robin noted, there is a small sliver missing at high noon. The motif is well known to The Big Book of Buttons (Elizabeth Hughes and Marion Lester, Second printing: 1991, Plate 152, #5) but not in this unusual material. A wonderful acquisition!

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The goat seems not to be pictured, instead there is a crag that sticks out almost directly above the lion who wants to beckon him down to the lush valley. BBB shows an apparently larger button with almost the same image on Plate 152 #7. Do I pick up some tint in this brass? The button may even have four pieces, since a very pleasant shiny rim encircles the whole scene and may be independent of the button's facing.

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I can find this button in neither BBB nor Nelson and Sweat "Fables on Buttons" in The National Button Bulletin (Oct., '86). The button pictures a crane holding a creature aloft in its beak. The creature seems to me to be a fish. In the foreground are reeds and plants. The crane and vegetation are in brass against a black background formed by a hollowed out crater. The rim is serrated. There is a welded loop on the back.

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Identical in design with the two 5/8" FC buttons. BBB Plate 154 #6. Let me quote from there: "Stamped brass, cut out and backed by a painted metal liner, with a narrow, white metal underliner showing under the rim; brass back with self shank."

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Perhaps the defining mark on this lovely dark button in fine condition is the curled tendril just above the fox's head. The red tint in the Larner exemplar is unmistakable here. BBB Plate 153, #3. Steel back and wire shank.

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This button takes a different artistic conception of the theme. BBB Plate 153, #8. The button is unusual among those I have not only for the applied grapes but also because it is of one piece (with no added back or shank) except for the grapes.

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Identical with the bronze button described just above. Might this button be slightly larger than that? The silver buttons in this series are harder to read than the bronze.

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This is a one piece pressed brass button with a silvered finish and a loop shank. At first it appears to be identical with the Goldbarg button of the same dimensions, but it includes so much more detail that I think it might have been produced independently.

Abstract This is perhaps the simplest of the buttons I have found. Until the Goldbarg offer, I did not know that this scene found its way onto a button. Almost the full top half of the button's circle is simple darkness. In addition to the dog and the lunch, there is only the raised ground beneath the animal. The button seems to have been constructed of the scene proper and a standard brass backing with a self-shank. BBB Plate 154 #29. In the Larner exemplar, this scene is, as BBB describes, "all...