Featured Antique Highschool Gold Cufflinks

I was contacted earlier this week by a man who was reading my blog, (<<click if you want to see it), while looking for information on an antique that he'd found. He said that I might be interested in something that he'd come across while digging through a pile of scrap gold.

He introduced himself as a semi-retired antiques dealer, and said that, if I wanted them, I could have them - for a reasonable price, of course. We exchanged phone numbers and haggled via text, and he sent me photos of the item in question.

He said he was interested because of the blog post I'd written about the antique silver cufflinks I'd added to my collection, with my old highschool crest on them (some of you may remember, I made a posting here about them last year).

He had found the matching gold ones! We agreed on a price, with express postage included, and he sent them off to me. They arrived yesterday!

You can see the gold ones at the top, and the silver ones below...



Marks for sterling silver, and 9ct gold ^^^

The cufflinks are pre-war, as far as I know. Sometime between about 1925 - 1939. Can't be further back than that, because the school coat of arms was different before 1924, and the style looks a bit old to be postwar. The jewelers that made them - DAMMANS - is G. Damman & Co. They were a Melbourne tobacconists' and jewelers' firm operating in the city for over 100 years, between 1854 up until the late 50s, maybe 60s? I can't find any information on when they 'went under'.

I imagined that these are quite rare. I'd never heard of the silver links before I'd bought them, and never even IMAGINED that gold ones existed, so when I found out, I absolutely had to have them!!

 

They certainly do! The only thing I was a bit annoyed about was this:



At some point, the cufflinks were damaged and were repaired with the incorrect number of links. You see FIVE on the left, THREE on the right.

If these are exactly like the silver ones, then it should be THREE links on both sides.

I'm going to take them to a local jeweler after Easter, and get them to remove a link from the left, and add it to the right, so that they're both 4 links long. I rang them up yesterday and they said that it shouldn't be a problem. They gave me a rough estimate over the phone, but obviously nothing will be concrete until I get there on Wednesday.

 

The photo linked below from the State Library of Victoria shows the shop with a sign celebrating the 100th anniversary in 1954.

https://www.slv.vic.gov.au/pictoria/gid/slv-pic-aab89168/1/a41755

eHive lists an item form the Royal Historical Society of Victoria - An invitation to staff to celebrate the 125th anniversary of the company G. Damman & Co. Pty Ltd. That would take them to 1979.

There is also a booklet in the National Library in Canberra listed as a history of the company published in 1972. It's not online but you could probably get a copy from them.

 

I dropped the cufflinks off at the jewelers' this afternoon and explained what needed doing.

Details were taken down, instructions recorded, and I was told to pick them up when they're done, which could be anytime in the next two weeks. So, just gotta wait now.

 

I'm proud to say that the cufflinks have returned!!

And with the correct number of links on each side, now...

 

They look lovely, Shangas!

 

Those have to be rare. Only an "old boy" or worker would have wanted them and not all of those.

 

That's precisely what I thought. I was intending to show them to the school archivist and see what he says.

 

If they're as rare as we think he'll probably about fall over.

 

I'll let you know in a few days! I just sent him an email. Here's part of what I said:

Hi >Name<,

I don't know if you remember me. I contacted you a few years back, about an old cigarette lighter with the Scotch coat of arms on the front.

I'm reaching out again to ask if you can help with something else that I've added to my collection since my last contact.

Do you know anything about antique, Scotch College CUFFLINKS?

Over the last nine months, I ended up with two sets of Scotch cufflinks. They are chain-links, with the school coat of arms on one end, and "torpedo"-shaped bars on the other. One was found on eBay, and the other pair was sold to me by a dealer in Brisbane, of all places! One is sterling silver, the other is 9ct gold, both made by Damman's Jewellers & Tobacconists in Collins St.

Going by the style of the links and what I know of the school's history, I'd say they were made sometime between the late 1920s up until the outbreak of WWII.

Given that they were likely made in the middle of the Great Depression when money was tight, surely solid gold and solid silver cufflinks - for a highschool - must've been quite expensive?

That being the case, I imagine that these must be at least fairly rare? Of course this is just my speculation here, but I don't see these being offered to ordinary schoolboys. Either staff, or old-boys, more likely, but again, that's only my guess.

Why would the school have commissioned something like this? And who would they have been intended for? Any insights at all?

Hope you can help! I have included photographs of the cufflinks, front and back. Happy to drop by the archives anytime in the month of May to show them to you, if you wish.

Hope to hear back, and hope you've been keeping well!

Thanks in advance,

>Name<
Scotch College
Class of 2005.

 

Now we wait and see. This ought to be fun.

 

He sent a reply last night

The school is opening a new museum/archive building next month, so they've actually been cataloguing all their stuff - including the cufflinks, as well as photographing them for online.

He said he didn't think he's seen mine before, but that doesn't mean that he hasn't. I told him I could arrange a time to bring them down for him to see them, and maybe photograph the others that he has, out of curiosity.

He did make the remark that most cufflinks are sold / marketed to school-leavers/old-boys, and teachers. The idea that gold and silver links would be marketed at (or at least, available to) schoolboys before graduation, was weird. Not impossible, but he thought, probably rather unlikely.

I'll find out in a couple of weeks when I can go and visit him.

 

Definitely rarities then. This should be fun.

 

I'll update the thread when I manage to get a few hours alone with the school archivist. As yet, I'm not sure when that'll be. Not for at least 2-3 weeks, though.