The Green Duck Co. was founded in Chicago in 1906 by George G. Greenburg and Harvey Ducgheisel. The "Greenduck" name was taken from the first syllables of their last names and was meant to be one word, but people tended to use it as two words, so the company became the Green Duck Metal Stamping Co. It produced various metal items such as license plates, tokens, clickers, watch fobs, and lithographed buttons.
During World War II, Green Duck supplied the U.S. Army's 101st and 82nd airborne divisions with metal "crickets" with which they signaled each other on the D-Day landing and afterward (they were so named because they looked and sounded like children's toys resembling a cricket). Two clicks signified a fellow American; four clicks meant a German soldier was nearby.
Among the buttons the company made were official Beatles fan club memorabilia and campaign buttons for Estes Kefauver and Dwight D. Eisenhower, including the iconic "I Like Ike" buttons. Green Duck also made needle threaders, key chains, and fraternity pins.
Green Duck moved to Hernando, Mississippi in 1975.* It was sold to a British firm in 1996 and closed in 2004. In January 2010, items from the Green Duck archives, including button sales sheets, Rin-Tin-Tin puzzles, and Cracker Jack army insignia buttons, were auctioned off by Hake's Americana and Collectibles.
Buttons in the museum manufactured by Green Duck