The George Morrell Corp - 1935 Casein Buttons

In the mid 1930's Casein plastic, made from milk, was used for a huge percentage of clothing buttons. It was the most suitable of the early plastics at the time for this purpose. In the late 1930's - early 40's, Urea Formaldehyde hit the market as a new type of plastic for button making. Casein was still used but was gradually scaled back as new plastics became available over the years.

I recently procured a large stock of NOS George Morrell Corp buttons in the original boxes, an amazing find! I was also able to locate the patent for the particular buttons from 1935. I will post the PDF below. Very cool 1930's documentation on the process of making these early plastic buttons.



Regards,
Jay

I like the colors. Reminds me of the buttons on my A-1.

Don’t let them get too wet. I left a casein plastic Conway Stewart fountain pen out in the rain and it softened up and ‘melted’.

robrinay said:

Don’t let them get too wet. I left a casein plastic Conway Stewart fountain pen out in the rain and it softened up and ‘melted’.

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Bummer! Actually sounds like a possible manufacturing issue. Casein is very unstable until it is immersed in a formaldehyde bath for a long period. It can take up to a year for 25mm thickness piece of casein to completely harden. Could be that the material was not dipped for long enough. Or not deemed necessary to completely harden it for pen use.

Casein buttons are washable and no worries on getting them wet. It was one of the advantages it held above other early plastics.
Here's an excerpt from a document from the Plastics Historical Society
"As a button material it is resistant to washing, dry cleaning and can withstand momentary contact with a hot iron – unlike most other competitive early plastics materials, but with the advent of the newer plastics after 1945 its use gradually declined. However, limited quantities of casein plastics are still produced in some countries with large dairy interests."

So no worries! Your casein buttons will not melt away if you get caught in a rain storm.

Phew! Good news about the buttons but you’ll still need to be careful with your early Conway Stewarts.