I finally decided to offer straight pins! These are the type that I wear to emulate period originals. Those of us that participate in living history, reenactments, or costuming like to wear items that simulate those of the past to the best of our ability. I personally cannot justify paying a lot for a pin that I may lose, so I wear these. You may already have pins, but these have a little round ball on the top and measure 1 inch long. You often can find them holding together men's button down shirts - but not everyone buys those or has access to them.

These pins are perfect for silk, wool, linen, cotton, or whatever fabric you chose for your clothing. I also use these to secure my ribbon to my cap, and have them in my kit when doing any sewing demonstrations. I must confess that my friends do more sewing than I since I love to cook!

You also see original extant pins from the time period that were gold washed or made in brass to give them a gold color. I like these as they are available and inexpensive. They measure one (1) inch long.

You will receive 20 pins when purchasing one (1). If you purchase two (2) you receive 40 pins and so on.

Pins that were made in the past were made in a variety of styles, but the most common we see have the little ball on the top. It may surprise many that in the 18th century, making pins was a business and they could make a LOT every single day. They had an assembly line. My research came across a reference about the Manufacturer of Pins -

…One man draws out the wire, another straights it, a third cuts it, a fourth points it, a fifth grinds it at the top for receiving the head; to make the head requires two or three distinct operations; to put it on, is a peculiar business, to whiten the pins is another; it is even a trade by itself to put them into the paper; and the important business of making a pin is, in this manner, divided into about eighteen distinct operations, which, in some manufactories, are all performed by distinct hands, though in others the same man will sometimes perform two or three of them. I have seen a small manufactory of this kind where ten men only were employed, and where some of them consequently performed two or three distinct operations. But though they were very poor, and therefore but indifferently accommodated with the necessary machinery, they could, when they exerted themselves, make among them about twelve pounds of pins in a day. There are in a pound upwards of four thousand pins of a middling size. Those ten persons, therefore, could make among them upwards of forty-eight thousand pins in a day. Each person, therefore, making a tenth part of forty-eight thousand pins, might be considered as making four thousand eight hundred pins in a day… (Taken from An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations).

References are many but as seen on my Pinterest board for Sewing - https://www.pinterest.com/kkwalte/sewing/

Portrait is of The Watercress Girl, 1780, by John Raphael Smith at the Yale Center for British Art.