Rings and Things and Buttons and Bows

My Aunt Lucy had a collection of buttons she kept in an old fruit cake tin. When I visited my Uncle for the first time at his Chicago co-op home in 1989, I felt like I had walked onto the set of "The Honeymooners". Everything in his home was exactly as it was when they married in 1942! They never moved the furniture from where it was placed, used the same china and silver they received at their wedding, and never replaced the stove or fridge. The freezer needed defrosting. but everything was in perfect shape.The curtain cover that hung around the kitchen sink was clean and pressed, but it was the same one from 50 years ago! An antique toaster--still used--sat on the gas stove.

Do you know anyone these days that would use an old #2 pencil, as shown above, sharpened down to this size?

Everything that was inside the old cake tin went onto this box; buttons, belt buckles, thimbles, needle, needle threaders, hooks and eyes, bobbins, and snaps. It makes a nice memento, and it's also useful. It holds many papers and miscellaneous doo-dads that had belonged to my uncle and aunt.