For years I’ve heard about Exclusive Buttons, a brick and mortar-only vintage button shop in El Cerrito (San Francisco Bay Area – East Bay). I used to live relatively close to them, but never made it by during their limited opening hours. A few weeks ago the husband and I were noodling around that area, and I finally remembered to pop in!
The store is run by the widow of a gentleman who used to run a business selling buttons to stores (out of his van) since the 1960s. At some point they stopped the wholesale button business and opened a retail shop. He has since passed on, but his wife is still running the shop.
The shop is small but FILLED to the brim with all kinds of vintage buttons. The only modern buttons they stock are Czech glass, and the owner proudly told me that there are no plastic buttons anywhere in their shop (okay, except things like Lucite). The prices are CRAZY good; the owner told me she hasn’t updated the prices since her husband passed.
I didn’t go in looking for anything too specific, so I just wandered and grabbed what caught my eye. Here’s a few pictures, plus my haul:
No plastic, nifty! That’s sweet that she’s still running the store with the prices from when her husband was around.