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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;User 67, post: 16154, member: 67&quot;]Coal is a mineral. Jet is a mineraloid made from decaying wood under extreme pressure.</p><p><br /></p><p>Coal is a sedimentary rock that forms when dead plant matter is converted into peat, then lignite, then into the various stages of coal. Actually both coal and jet are formed from lignite, and jet is referred to as lignite. I believe that coal is to jet as humans are to apes, having a common ancestor, so to speak -the ape/jet being closer to that ancestor.</p><p><br /></p><p>The first test for jet is the touch, black glass is cool to the touch, jet is not due to its lesser thermal conductivity and it is lighter than glass. Polished jet can also feel like plastic.</p><p><br /></p><p>Hard Coal and Ebonite (a rubber product) are similar to jet and were used as imitation jet. Rubbed against unglazed porcelain, jet leaves a dark brown streak.</p><p><br /></p><p>When I first started going to antique stores as a teen in the early 1970s, I found a cigar box full of all black glass buttons, under a shelf in the back of a little antique shop. There wasn&#039;t a price on the box and I asked how much for the entire box. The biddy who ran the shop snatched them from me and said, &quot;it&#039;s twenty dollars, but you can&#039;t afford them -these are for real collectors.&quot; I had more than $20 on me, but didn&#039;t tell her. I just left the shop in a huff. Needless to say, that started my obsession with jet, black glass buttons and beads and only added fuel to my passion for buttons. I can&#039;t tell you how many hours I sat on the floors of antique stores, after they told me the buttons were all under 5¢, emptying the canister into a tray and pawing through them all.</p><p><br /></p><p>By the time I was 21 (back when you could still find a quart jar of pre-1950s buttons for 50¢) I had&nbsp; filled a hall closet (3&#039;x3&#039;x9&#039;tall) completely with boxes of buttons -all sorted. After moving to 4 different apartments and having my brothers and friends slowly begin to refuse to move me again, I finally relented and sold about 3/4th of that collection. I did rebuild it up to a point, and continued to buy buttons for a long time, but I have never had as huge a collection as was originally there. Of all the collections I have amassed and sold, I only really regret selling the buttons. It had to be done, but I still mourn the loss.</p><p><br /></p><p>The last time I sold off any of my buttons, I had about 40 lbs of plastic &#039;craft&#039; buttons I had sorted into colors. They were all from before 1960. I sold them about 10 years ago to my aunt who has a little booth in a small town antique mall. She kept them in her garage for years then last year she finally put them in little baggies of a half-cup each to sell them (like I originally suggested) and made out like a bandit. When I asked what took her so long to put them in her booth, she said &#039;I was thinking, who&#039;s going to buy buttons?&#039;.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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