for Leo Baekeland

Here's a handsome button in two tones of beautifully smooth Bakelite. The base is apple juice with fine carvings while the top layer is chocolate brown and absolutely blemish-free. This is a large button that must've looked striking in the 1920's or early 1930's on a debonair coat of substantial style.

After all these years of celebrating Bakelite on this blog, would you believe it's taken me this long to remember the birthday of famed Bakelite-inventor, Leo Baekeland? Today's the day; so happy birthday Leo! A Belgian-American chemist, Leo Baekeland patented his invention and named it after himself in 1907. Since then, he's been nicknamed "The Father of the Plastics Industry" and a true giant of chemical sciences. Wealthy and eccentric in his elderly days, Leo died in 1944 around the time that Bakelite (as a fashion and household product) also died out while new types of plastic came to dominate the market.

-Sherbert McGee