East Coast collectors of political buttons, badges, ribbons and related ephemera will meet in Titusville, NJ, on Saturday, April 28, to sell, trade, and display memorabilia from elections throughout the centuries. This 15th-annual gathering will be held at the Titusville United Methodist Church that Saturday from 9am through 3pm.
Attendees from multiple states will find a wide variety of political items, ranging from 2016 presidential-campaign buttons promoting candidates Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, to items from such popular former presidents as Teddy R. and Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, and Barack Obama.
The gathering will be hosted by the local chapter of the American Political Items Collectors (APIC) national non-profit hobbyist association, dedicated to preserving political history.
“We invite the young and old alike to learn more about collecting buttons from the heated 2016 presidential campaign, as well as from other campaigns throughout American history,” said Tony Lee, a Titusville resident, political historian and president of APIC’s Big Apple Chapter. “Most political items don’t survive the elections in which they were used, so to see an ‘I Like Ike’ apron or a Ronald Reagan cowboy hat or a clothing button worn at George Washington’s inauguration and inscribed with ‘Long Live the President’ is a great experience for students of political history at any age.”
Tony Lee (center), a Titusville (NJ) resident, political historian and president of the Big Apple Chapter of the American Political Items Collectors (APIC) national non-profit hobbyist association
The historic Titusville United Methodist Church is located at 7 Church Road – at the corner of River Road (Route 29) and Church Road – in Titusville, due south of Lambertville, NJ, and due north of the state capital, Trenton, NJ. The button show will be held in the church’s Education Building. Ample free parking is available.
Admission to the event is $3 for each adult. Any child 12 years or younger may enter free of charge. To encourage a lifelong love of political history and collecting, each child will receive assorted buttons, free of charge, to start his or her own personal collection. Free appraisals will be offered for all political items brought in by members of the public; members of the public also may bring items for auction, with a commission rate of 10 percent of the overall sale. A wide selection of baked goods and other items, and bottomless cups of hot coffee and tea, will be offered for sale (with net food-sale proceeds benefiting the church and its ministries).
