🔎 UNIDENTIFIED Flat Button Backmark Help, Please.

fyrffytr1

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Mar 5, 2010
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I could use some help with this plain front flat button. It is larger than a quarter and has an ornate backmark. It reads "Best Quality"across the top, "Standard Colour" inside the circle. There is a "K" in an oval at the bottom inner circle and what looks like flowers at the top of the inner circle. I figure it is probably 1820s but was wondering about the significance of the K and flowers.
The button is in very good condition as seen by the reflection of my camera holding fingers in the front picture.
 

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Sure is in great condition still.
 

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I found out that the "flowers" are not flowers, they are plumes. Also found out that the plumes mean this button was made for the Welsh market. Still don't know what the "k" stands for but I am guessing it is the makers mark.
 

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I found out that the "flowers" are not flowers, they are plumes. Also found out that the plumes mean this button was made for the Welsh market. Still don't know what the "k" stands for but I am guessing it is the makers mark.

I would assume the 'K' is a maker mark too, although I don't immediately recognise it. Still thinking about that.

Those are indeed 'plumes' and colloquially known as the "Prince of Wales plumes" but they're not an indication that a button made for the Welsh market, nor that a button was made in Wales.

They most usually indicate that the button-maker (wherever he might have been based) had the patronage of the Prince of Wales, which is an honorary title traditionally bestowed on the next-in-line to the British throne. Such patronage could arise by something you produced being used by the Royal household, not necessarily by the Prince himself, and not necessarily buttons (if you were a metal goods producer who made other things too),

Currently, Prince Charles is Prince of Wales since he will become King when Elizabeth dies. If current protocol is followed, the title would then pass to his eldest son, Prince William.

See my post at this link:

 

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I could use some help with this plain front flat button. It is larger than a quarter and has an ornate backmark. It reads "Best Quality"across the top, "Standard Colour" inside the circle. There is a "K" in an oval at the bottom inner circle and what looks like flowers at the top of the inner circle. I figure it is probably 1820s but was wondering about the significance of the K and flowers.
The button is in very good condition as seen by the reflection of my camera holding fingers in the front picture.
I wish i could help . Nice finds NICE display of pictures !! You did a good job of showing !!!
 

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With the Prince of Wales plumes and the spelling of "colour" with a "u", I would assume this to be a British button.

In America, both spellings were used interchangeably through to the early 1800s but Webster's 1806 dictionary established "color" as the preferred spelling for Americans.
 

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