The history of the cuff link does not go as far back as you may think. Shirts were originally an item of men’s underwear and did not become an exposed garment until the 16th Century. The cuffs of the shirt, when it was an undergarment, were sometimes frilled or ruffed and allowed to be shown at the wrist. Some commentators suggest that this was a rather daring thing to do, much like exposing a hint of underpants today.

Cuffs of shirts were originally tied or laced with ribbons or tape ties, a practice that continued into the 19th Century, although by then buttons had been used for some time to close a cuff, a step that made it significantly easier for a person to dress themselves unaided.

There were several types of buttons in use, including the flat button that is familiar to us all today and which is sewn through directly onto a garment, and the shank button which has a hollow protrusion on the back through which a thread can be sewn to attach the button. This could also be attached when the protrusion was inserted into a hole on the garment and secured on the other side with a wire or clasp

Buttons for everyday use would have been made from horn, wood and shell, but as they became increasingly a decorative feature and made from more valuable materials such as silver, gold and precious stones, the buttons would have had to been removed before the garment was washed to avoid damage and re-sewed when dried and ironed.

We can guess that at about this point, some fashion conscious chap realised that joining two shank buttons together with a thread or a wire, would enable him to secure the open cuffs of his shirt more easily by having a buttonhole on each side of the cuff and threading the buttons through the buttonholes. Moreover, it would allow him to show a button on either side of each cuff and he wouldn’t need to pay a servant to re-sew his buttons continually.

Boutons de Manchette

All over the web you will find references to shirt sleeves being fastened for the first time with boutons de manchette, or “sleeve buttons,” during the reign of Louis XIV. This has been repeated without any verification that I can find, along with the statement that the boutons de manchette were “ typically identical pairs of coloured glass buttons joined together by a short, linked chain.” While the timing, 17th – 18th Century seems about right, I’m sure that the buttons used would more likely to have been made in a metal such as silver and that there would have been some experimentation with the joining method, such as the thread or wire mentioned previously, before someone hit on the use of a tiny linked chain.

The First Cufflinks

Early Silver Cufflinks

The illustration here of a pair of silver chain-link cufflinks, which are the earliest I can find, seem to bear this out.  These date to the period of the restoration in England of King Charles II and appear to have been made to celebrate the marriage of Charles II to Catherine of Braganza on the 20th May 1662 and show clasped hands wearing stylish 17th century cuffs, while above there is a crown and below two hearts. The hearts and clasped hands motif are traditional symbols of marriage and union. These “sleeve buttons” may possibly have be worn by Royal supporters of Charles and may be an early example of manufacturing commemorative items for a Royal occasion.

The term “sleeve buttons” was certainly still in use in the UK in the late 17th Century where references using this term along with diamond cuff buttons and buttons set in gold and enamel can be found. The earliest reference to links is found 100-years later in the Birmingham Gazette in 1788.

However, it wasn’t until the middle of the 18th Century and the invention of steam driven stamping machines during the industrial revolution, that mass-produced men’s jewellery became available to a wider audience at more affordable prices.

French Cuffs & Single Cuffs

This may have encouraged the popularisation by the 1840s of what we now know as the French cuff – a double-cuff shirt that folds back on itself and is sometimes known as a kissing cuff – that remains popular today and for which we continue to make a variety of traditional and modern cufflinks.

Another driver for the popularisation of cuff links in the Victorian and Edwardian eras was the use of detachable collars and cuffs on shirts. The collars and cuffs would be starched rigid, making it virtually impossible to use a button to close them. Collars would be attached to the shirt with a collar stud and cuffs with a cuff link. The use of detachable collars and cuffs enabled the shirt to be worn for several days with a fresh collar added daily. Grubby cuffs could be reversed after the first days use and refreshed on the third day.

Turk’s Knot Cufflinks

An alternative fastener to the cufflink is the silk knot, also known as monkey’s fists or turk’s head. The famous Paris shirtmaker Charvet is credited with their introduction in 1904, although today they are rarely made from silk and elastic is used instead. Chavet customers have included Edward VII and Winston Churchill and the business still flourishes today on the Place Vendôme, a few doors away from its original location. The popularity of this fashion led to the introduction of metal cufflinks shaped to look like a silk knot – we make them in silver and they can be found on our website by following the link to Silver Cufflinks – Turks Knot.

One of our recent customers wanted to emulate Inspector Henry Crabbe, a character in a TV series shown on BBC1 between 1994 and 1997.

“Pie in the Sky” was a light-hearted British police drama featuring a disillusioned policeman and pie chef extraordinaire. The role was created specially for Richard Griffiths, typically known for his comic performances and his role in Harry Potter.

I missed that series, but apparently the detective pieman, used to carry a little silver pepper mill in his waistcoat pocket which was whisked out as the occasion demanded.

There’s a still from the series above and a clip from the series above right. You can see the silver pepper mill we engraved below. If you would like to purchase a similar one yourself follow the link to the small silver pepper mill.

]]> http://www.hersey.co.uk/silver-blog/silver-peppermill-inspector-crabbe/feed/ 0 http://www.hersey.co.uk/silver-blog/crystal-salt-mill/ http://www.hersey.co.uk/silver-blog/crystal-salt-mill/#comments Thu, 24 Nov 2011 08:45:32 +0000 admin http://www.hersey.co.uk/silver-blog/?p=716

I read that the health do-gooders are at it again, this time with yet another report that UK adults eat too much salt. Which? Magazine and Consensus Action on Salt and Health found no difference in chemical content between regular salt and ‘costly gourmet brands’.

In a quote aimed at getting reported in the tabloid press, they went on to say, “Celebrity chefs should not be encouraging people to sprinkle sea salt on food, as you can get all the salt you need from a balanced diet.”

So Jamie, Marco Pierre White and even our local JP Gravier are being accused of not knowing how to prepare a meal and season it so that it arrives at the table with a combination of flavours to delight the customer.

Meanwhile, most ready made meals from your local supermarket will be overdosed with salt to preserve the food and avoid the use of more expensive herbs and other ingredients.

Fortunately, a few salt producers were allowed to comment on the report. Romi Alexander of So Natural, which supplies Himalayan Crystal Salt, spoke tellingly, saying, “Table salt is a highly refined, processed white substance that’s devoid of nutrients.”

Of course, one of the benefits of ‘expensive’ crystal salt is that its price will make home cooks use it more sparingly than free-running processed salt, so that’s got to be good for you. While the bigger benefit is that it encourages people to invest in our beautiful range of salt mills. (You had to read this far to find out why I was writing about salt and not silver!)

Found on the tables of Michelin starred restaurants and one of our popular gifts – in combination with with our silver peppermills – our range of salt mills are available in solid silver or in combination with Rosewood, Blackwood and Ivorine. Like most of our gifts we can engrave them with names or messages. Perhaps “Just One Twist” would satisfy Which?.

Today marks the occasion of Muhammad Ali’s Silver Wedding Anniversary. In 1999 Ali was crowned “Sportsman of the Century” by Sports Illustrated and “Sports Personality of the Century” by the BBC. But the sportsman simply known as ‘The Greatest’ by millions of people around the world and quotes such as, “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee,” has a more gentle side as revealed by this quotation:

“Friendship is the hardest thing in the world to explain. It’s not something you learn in school. But if you haven’t learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven’t learned anything.”

The Champ had been married three times before marrying Yolanda E Williams (“Lonnie”), 14-years his junior, on November 19, 1986 in Louisville, Kentucky. They had been friends since 1964. They have one son, Asaad Amin, who they adopted when Amin was five.

We wish them a great day…follow the link if you wish to buy a Silver Wedding Anniversary gift for this or any other Silver Anniversary.

See photo above: Muhammad Ali with his wife Yolanda, accept the President’s Award during the 40th NAACP Image Awards held at the Shrine Auditorium on February 12, 2009 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Vince Bucci/Getty Images for NAACP)

To coincide with the announcement of the Christmas Stamps for 2011, we are publishing our last posting dates for Christmas. If you live in Australia or New Zealand, there’s less than a month to go before you can place your last order…so don’t delay!

Our engraver is already busy personalising Christmas Gifts with messages, so please don’t leave it until the last minute if you would like to have your Christmas Presents engraved.

All our gifts are sent postage free worldwide, in the UK by Recorded Delivery and in the Rest of the World by Signed For services, so someone will need to be at the delivery address to sign for any items we mail.

The last date for posting to addresses in the:

• UK and Channel Islands – Wednesday 21 December – order by 1.00pm
• Western Europe – Monday 12th December
• USA, Canada & Eastern Europe – 9th December
• Australia & NZ – Monday 5th December

If you are in any doubt as to whether we will be able to meet a delivery date in time for Christmas or need advice with engraving please give us a call or send us an email and we will be happy to advise you.

(Sorry, but we don’t use stamps like the ones illustrated to post your gifts…we’ve just shown them here because they are quite pretty!)

Raymond Blanc, one of our most revered chefs, was pictured in The Times yesterday holding a lovely rosewood and silver capstan saltmill. Unfortunately, due to copyright restrictions I am unable to reproduce the image from The Times, but the saltmill Blanc was holding was very similiar to the one pictured on the right.

Blanc has long been an advocate of a low-salt diet and recommends that as little sugar and salt as possible are used in cooking, especially in children’s meals. Doing this, he claims, will let them grow with more refined palates than us – and free them from the health problems of older generations. Instead he recommends other ways of adding flavour such as herbs.

My initial concern on reading the article was that Raymond’s crusade would lead to the demise of the saltmill and an important part of my business. However, I was reassured by his closing statement about his diners being able to find salt cellers on his restaurant tables.“Of course! “ (they will find them), says Blanc, “I am not going to be a tyrant. At the cookery school, we educate people. In the restaurant it is about celebration. I am here to give joy.”

If you are looking to enhance your dining table with a beautiful pair of salt and peppermills, you could book a table at Blanc’s La Manor aux Quat’Saisons hotel in Oxfordshire and try to smuggle them out in a handbag or pocket…much easier to buy them here though!

The silver and rosewood saltmill illustrated above is distinguished from others in our range by having both a silver cap and bottom band as part of the classic capstan design.

In a dramatic find that has already got me searching for my Speedo’s and snorkel to see if I can emulate it, Odyssey Marine Exploration Inc., a Florida based exploration company with the desirable domain name of www.shipwreck.net, announced today that it had located the wreck of the SS Gairsoppa, sunk by a U-Boat in 1941 when it was carrying up to 7 million ounces of silver. At the time this was worth £600,000, but at todays prices this has rocketed to a value of about £135 million.

Now shipwrecked at a depth of 4,700 meters (15,419 feet) about 300 miles off Ireland’s coast in international waters, the Gairsoppa’s final voyage began in Calcutta, India in December 1940 where she had been loaded with nearly 7,000 tons of cargo that included not just silver, but pig iron and tea.

She joined a convoy from Freetown, Sierra Leone, which departed for Liverpool on January 31, 1941 without a military escort. Reaching the Atlantic, the Gairsoppa hampered with her heavy cargo, was forced to reduce speed due to high winds and ocean swells. As the weather worsened on February 14, the Gairsoppa, running low on coal and with insufficient fuel to keep up with the convoy, was forced to sail alone without the protection of the convoy and headed for neutral Republic of Ireland and Galway harbour.

On 17 February 1941, U-boat U-101 captained by Ernst Mengersen, submerged to 66.5 meters and moved in for the attack. Four torpedoes were fired, one hitting its mark. Around 22.30 hours an explosion occurred in the Gairsoppa’s no. 2 hold. The impact of this caused the foremast to crash onto the deck, snapping the wireless antennae and cutting the ship off from the outside world, so no distress call could be sent. 81-crew members and two gunners were lost (see http://www.convoyweb.org.uk/sl/mem/64_1.htm)

Almost 70-years later, in 2010, the UK’s Department for Transport awarded Odyssey, in a competitive bidding process, the exclusive salvage contract for the cargo of the SS Gairsoppa. Under this agreement, Odyssey will retain 80% of the net salved value of the silver bullion recovered.

Odyssey are now working on plans to recover the treasure, with operations expected to begin in the spring of 2012. They are not expected to recover the tea!

A big thank you to all our readers who signed the petition to save Hallmarking. You will be pleased to hear that after consultation with the public, the Government have recognised hallmarking as a “good regulation” and will therefore be maintained.

While steps are being taken to “simplify, improve or abolish two-thirds of the retail regulations”, Minister for Business and Enterprise, Mark Prisk, said, “we are preserving good regulation, such as the hallmarking regime, for which there was strong support.”

Dr. Robert Organ, Deputy Warden of the Goldsmiths’ Company, said, “without the huge support of the trade the result of the Red Tape Challenge could have been very different. We would therefore like to say a very big thank you to all of those who registered their support for hallmarking on the Red Tape Challenge website.  We are lucky that we are in an industry that pulls together at times like this and from a personal point of view it is reassuring that hallmarking is viewed as being so important.”

Interest in hallmarking is bound to increase over the next 12-months. The Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth is in 2012 and from 2nd January we will have a special range of silver gifts that will include the special Diamond Jubilee Commemorative Hallmark.

On 12th August a twenty-one-gun salute greeted HRH the Princess Royal, President of the Royal Yachting Association, as she arrived at Cowes Castle for the official Prize Giving Reception for the Transatlantic Race 2011. Hersey & Son had been commissioned by the Transatlantic Race organisers to make

23 solid silver Armada dishes in three different sizes to be given as trophies for the winning and second and third placed yachts in each class. These were presented by the Princess Royal to the winning owners.

The race had been started on 26th June with cannon fire from Castle Hill Lighthouse.  It was the first of three staggered starts, implemented so that the 26 competing yachts ranging in size from 40’ to 289’ would finish off The Lizard in close proximity to one another. The second start was on 29th June and the third took place on 3rd July. The yachts represented 10 nations.

The first finisher on Sunday, 10 July was Rambler 100 with an elapsed time of six days, 22 hours, eight minutes and two seconds; establishing a new record for the 2,975 nautical mile course from Newport, R.I., to Lizard Point, South Cornwall, U.K.  PUMA’s Mar Mostro was next across the finish line at The Lizard at 05:40 UTC on the following day, and when calculations proved that none of the 24 yachts still racing could beat them on handicap Mar Mostro was declared winner of IRC Class One and IRC Overall for the Transatlantic Race 2011.

The Transatlantic Race 2011 is the centerpiece of the Atlantic Ocean Racing Series (AORS), which includes the Pineapple Cup – Montego Bay Race, RORC Caribbean 600, the Annapolis to Newport Race, Rolex Fastnet Race, Biscay Race and the Rolex Middle Sea Race. Of the seven races in the AORS, three races, including the TR 2011 must be completed to qualify for a series victory.

Following on from our news item last week, we can now write a little about the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Hallmarking event that took place at Goldsmiths Hall last evening.

In the presence of Princess Michael of Kent the first items to receive the Diamond Jubilee Hallmark were hallmarked, including a newly designed silver coaster that we had made especially for the occasion. This will be going on sale shortly, but will not be available with the Diamond Jubilee Hallmark until 1st January 2012.

We hope to have some pictures of the evening in a day or two and will publish these along with a photo the silver coaster in a dew days time.