What happened to our
jewelry quality blazer button collection?

When Ben Silver began to sell blazer buttons in 1960, he intended them as an accent to the tailored blazers he was cutting in his loft on Park Avenue South and selling to J. Press, Chip, Tripler, Saks Fifth Avenue and Macy’s.

He never imagined them to become a product of their own; instead, if J. Press was buying for its New Haven store, Ben thought it would want to sell a blazer with Yale buttons.

There is no paper trail of the way Ben found the contractors he worked with to create the buttons. How did he find Leo, who had an emblematic jewelry company that relied on contracts with the military for badges, but could decorate a small button as well as a mid-size badge? How did he find Ron, who could strike a brass stamping from an engraved die, which would become a button? How did he find the craftsman die maker who could engrave the die?

There are no answers to those questions. Everyone is long gone. But the process was one of meticulous craft: first the design for the die was drawn and then reduced to the size of a button. Remember, there were no digital files, no computers. Everything was done by hand. The diemaker engraved the die and struck a soft “lead” stamping for approval. The customer (Yale, for example) approved or modified the die. The diemaker hardened the die and sent it to the stamper. The stamper affixed the die to a stamping machine, from which it struck brass pieces in minimum quantities, then trimmed the brass, and sent it to the enamellist.