Featured Woman Cufflinks?

Are these woman cufflinks? Are these gold? What is the mark?

 

"Sykes and Strandberg began business 1899, with the partnership being made up of George H. Sykes and Gustave W. Strandberg, employing more than 100 staff in the production of solid gold and silver and gold front jewellery."

 

I don't think women wore these back then...........

 

I have similar in plat. They belonged to my paternal grandfather. I broke them up and made them into 4 stickpins-kept 2 and gifted two.

 

Those look like gold-filled cuff links. A lady could easily have worn them; women's shirts often used cuff buttons too for a while. They come back in for women every so often. I wear a 34 sleeve myself and wear men's french cuffs sometimes. (I'm more likely to wear those gaudy 60s Austin Powers rhinestone ones when I can nab some.) I know for sure women back then did raid the men's department out of necessity sometimes - my great-grandad's sisters both did.

 

Cleaning/polishing them any ideas?

 

I probably wouldn't bother unless they have "greenies", i.e. corrosion on the brass bits. They're old and are supposed to look old.

 

The back looks bad but I will not clean them.

 

Women started wearing cufflinks around 1900, the cufflinks made for them are smaller than men's cufflinks as the cuffs were different and also the material of the blouses was (still is) much more delicate. In the 1920s and early 1930s it was quite fashionable for woman to wear cufflinks, have a look at Marlene Dietrich for example

 

Certainly a style worn by men in that period.

Debora