For the next several days, we'll be sharing some of our handsome gold (or gold-content) cufflinks—most of them embellished with elegant and stylish engraving. Such golden links will always be a stylish and elegant accessory for any well-tailored man.
Shown here, a pair of English Art Deco cufflinks hallmarked Birmingham, 1929. They were made by Owen Powell, a jeweler in the Birmingham "Jewelry Quarter" in the Twenties and Thirties. These 9 karat gold links were "machine-turned," that is, etched with the tight, precise and repetitive pattern seen here. Lathes had been used for turning wood or stone since the Ancient Mycenaeans in 1300 BC. In the Eighteenth Century, with the advent of the Industrial Age, the lathe was adapted for the fine (and accurate) engraving of metalwork—jewelry, decorative objects and copper plates (for guilloché printing on currency and other important documents). This form of engraving—called Machine-Turning—allowed difficult precision etching to be executed quickly and accurately. Such perfection could not have been achieved when engraving by-hand. Click on the photo above to learn more about these handsome cufflinks.
More Golden Links tomorrow and in the days to come.
Though our Greenwich Village store is now permanently closed, LEO Design is still alive and well! Please visit our on-line store where we continue to sell Handsome Gifts (www.LEOdesignNYC.com).
To arrange a visit our Pittsburgh showroom (by private appointment only), please call 917-446-4248.