Here are some of the flat buttons I have been either hand cleaning or putting in an ultrsonic cleaner this week. After finding two really good buttons mixed in I had to start cleaning the rest to check them.
smarter way of doing it you have! I was way more into the Civil war relics for the first 15 years or so.. I sort of just checked the buttons to see if they were military or rather nice and if not they went into various containers over the years.. had no clue how many i had until I started dumping them out... this is just part of them. It is a big job cleaning them if you let them pile up!!!