Cocooned Bakelite

What in the world?! One of my favorite Bakelite oddity-buttons is this absolutely wacky toggle in green and butterscotch. The butterscotch core piece is a cylinder wrapped in the green "cocoon" sort of exterior with three shaved away sections revealing the bright golden-yellow interior. At both ends of this crazy button you can see the butterscotch log as well. Letting my imagination run wild, it's almost like this button is a stylized depiction of a Venus flytrap eating a stick of butter! Normally, I don't post more than one photo per button on this blog, but this major curiosity is an exception and I'm sharing an additional picture here to show off the marvelous angles and contours of this truly unusual find. In all my years collecting Bakelite buttons, I've never come across another like this one. Purchased at a now-closed antique shop in New York City that boasted the city's best vintage jewelry section with oodles of Bakelite brooches and bracelets, I was told that this button was made back in the mid-1940's. Cocooned Bakelite. Isn't is mind-boggling?

-Sherbert McGee