Missed Y'all :), help with old cuff links pretty please

Waving Hi, I haven't been here in a while, and have missed you all. I see lots of new people and that's wonderful!
These cuff links have me puzzled. They were found in this card and I have not been able to ID the mark on the card that looks like WM Co Trade Mark?, but I'm not sure if that's what it reads. Also, I don't know if these are the original cuff links that came in this card, and if they are sterling with some type of brass or bronze colored overlay?? I believe the backs are called bean back. The stones appear to be real rubies because they are not the same color, and have imperfections.
And what the heck does soft cuff links mean?
Thanks for your time.

 

Hi Tye,
Long time no see. I do not think you cuff links belong to the card. The trademark looks newer than the links. The links are probably not silver but might have had gilt plating at one time. I also believe the rubies are either glass or plastic. Are they cool to the touch or warm like room temp? If they were real they would have been set in gold or at least sterling and marked with something. I think they are beautiful and would wear them. The only soft cuff links I had were made with black cotton braiding and had love knots on the one end. Not that they were called soft, they just were soft.
greg

 

Thanks Greg, good to see ya! That makes perfect sense. It does seem like there would be a marking if they were real. They are at least glass, not plastic, because there is some chipping on the top of one of them. It is weird though because one of them is a deeper red, and the other one is more of a pinkish red, so they don't exactly match one another, as far as color.
LOL, about the soft cuff links!!

 

Perhaps they meant for a soft cuff rather than starched ones.
BTW, I have seen that font on items dating back as far as the very early 1900s - maybe even the late 1890s, but I agree that these links do not belong with the card.

 

Not the right card for those cufflinks. As Greg said, soft cufflinks are a different critter. Google soft-cufflinks.com.

 

According to my Cuff Jewelry book (by Howard L Bell Jr) that type of link started being used about 1890.

 

Googling "soft cufflinks" went nowhere, so I tried "hard cufflinks," which led me to the company for the soft ones. (Ignore the fibromyalgia stuff and move downward.)

 

Silver, I'm not finding a darn thing using either of those.

 

HI Mesii & Silverthwait!!!
LOL Googling soft cuff links got me no where too. Messi thanks for letting me know what that book read, I couldn't find a date when they went into use.
Thanks for all your great advice, y'all are the best.

 

OK, how would you describe these for listing? Bronze tone (or copper, or brass)?, the only wear to the plating is on the bean backs. The rest look like they are meant to be that color. Like the color of an old penny. What about the style....any good keywords? I'll just call the stones glass.
Circa 1900?
Thanks again

 

Google "hard cufflinks." The quotes make it work.

 

sigh . . . still nothing that relates.

 

Try: definition "hard cufflinks."

 

Is this the site? . . .
http://www.fibromyalgia.tipsweb.info/history-of-silk-knots-and-the-silk-knot-cufflink/

 

Just so. I didn't take the time to figure out what fibromyalgia has to do with cufflinks -- soft Or hard.

However, I've been seriously grossed out by those ads regarding "power morcelators." Ugh!

 

Definitely not the original card, they're clearly not silver - to my eye, they appear to be well-aged gilt or gold-plated brass with faint remnants of the gold still present. They would have been inexpensive links, with that design, would guess they were made sometime from the 1890s into the 1920s.

Messi was on the right track, the card refers to links intended for soft cuffs (and double/French cuffs), it most likely dates to right around the first quarter of the 20th century, when the soft, rather than stiff, cuffs were becoming popular (the 'Kum-A-Part' snap cuff buttons were developed for soft cuffs). The trademark on the card is aggravatingly familiar to me, but can't seem to pull it up from the confusion in my brain.

~Cheryl

1912:

1910s:


1922:

 

Trademark is familiar to me as well! It isn't Woolworths, nor Wanamakers...but I know I've seen it...somewhere...a loooong time ago.

 

It's an M and a W. Marshall Ward?

 

Or Montgomery Ward?

 

Oh thank you all so very much!! Much appreciated.
Cheryl, wonderful information and thank you, thank you
I love seeing those old advertisements.
That trade mark looks familiar to me too, I don't know why though. Maybe we've seen it on the boards before? I don't know.