Samac Button Case w/Buttons

Button, button, who's got the button? Apparently YOU will if you win this auction. This plastic case of buttons came with the house when we bought it several years ago. I have no idea how old they are (not very, since the case is plastic!) nor what they're made of (they appear to be metal, and some at least brass-coated) nor how many there are. No, I am NOT counting them! There's 18 compartments in this case, and a minimum of five buttons in each compartment, so we're talking well over 100 buttons. They range in size from about 1/4 inch to 3/4 inch. There seem to be five or six patterns and multiple buttons and sizes of each pattern, but I don't really care enough to go through them all and catalog them. What you see is what you get.

For all I know this is the Holy Grail of Buttondom and it is worth gazillions, but I am too inherently lazy to find out, so I'll take whatever people want to give me for them. The plastic case is old and faded and cracked in several places. There's even a punch-out sort of hole on the one side associated with a much larger crack—small, but it's still there. It's been sitting on a bookcase for decades and people have been throwing books on top of it so I'm surprised it's in as good of shape as it is. (I'm guessing children have been playing with them, too, but I don't know for certain since I wasn't in the house at the time.) The lid says "SAMAC buttons inc. NEW YORK, N.Y." and above this it says "CHICKERING 4-2850-1-2-3" which must be some sort of secret button code known only to button enthusiasts.

It's got the usual dust and dirt and streakiness one may expect from forty-year-old plastic (a guess), and it's probably been gurbed on by countless babies and toddlers back in those halcyon years before the term "choking hazard" really meant anything. I'm not going to bother to clean it for fear of destroying whatever value it may or may not have. You may have that pleasure, assuming you win this auction. So have at it!