You find the strangest things on the internet.

I stumbled across these on an online auction site while bidding on some antique silverware. I’d never seen anything like them before, they were in very good condition for their age, and the price seemed reasonable, so I bid on them. I was very excited to win them and add them to my trove of treasures, and they now form part of my collection of antique cufflinks!

These antique ‘torpedo-style’ chained cufflinks, typical of the 1920s and 30s, are sterling silver with blue enamel on the front.

Normally, I don’t collect silver cufflinks, but I made an exception for these, because the face of the cufflinks depicts the crest of Scotch College, in Melbourne – my old highschool. Since I went there for so long, I decided that it’d be a nice little touch to buy them as a memento of my school-days.

The Coat of Arms on the Cufflinks

The coat of arms on the cufflinks is for Scotch College, a private boys’ school in Melbourne. Established in 1851, it’s the oldest school in the state, and, I think something like the…third oldest…school in the entire country.

The coat of arms is quartered by the Scottish Cross of St. Andrew on a background of blue. The quarters depict the Royal Crown representing Australia’s links to the British Empire, the Torch of Enlightenment and Education, the Southern Cross constellation, the Olympiad rowboat with its sails furled to indicate determination, and the Burning Bush (above the crown) to symbolise the school’s religious background.

The blue banner at the top has the Latin motto “DEO – PATRIAE – LITTERIS” (For God, for Country, for Letters). When the school was founded in 1851, the original motto was “DEO et LITTERIS” (“God and Learning”). This was ‘updated’ in 1914 with the start of the First World War, when the motto was changed to the current version, with the addition of “PATRIAE” during such a momentous time in international history.

The complete coat of arms, with the three-word motto and the quartered shield and bush were finally joined together and became the new school coat of arms in 1924.

What is ‘DAMMAN’S’?

“Damman’s” was the name of a tobacconist’s shop and jeweler’s on the corner of Collins Street and Swanston street in Melbourne. Established in 1854, at the height of the Melbourne gold-mining boom, the shop lasted for at least 100 years, and was operated by at least two generations of the Damman family. Doing bulk custom-orders for specialised clients (such as these cufflinks for the school) must’ve been a big part of their business, because these aren’t the only Damman’s branded Scotch-related memorabilia which I have in my collection.

How old are these Cufflinks?

My guess is that they were made between the mid-1920s to the late 1930s. There’s a number of clues and indicators that point towards this.

First, the school coat of arms was adopted in 1924. So they can’t be any older than that. Second, I know that Damman’s was still producing Scotch-badged memorabilia in the mid-1930s (the cigarette lighter in my collection is from 1932). Thirdly, the cufflinks are chained cufflinks – very common in the Victorian era and the early 20th century…but which started to decline heavily in popularity in the decades after the Second World War.

Such cufflinks would have been unlikely to have been made during the war, and look too old-fashioned for postwar, 1950s construction, leaving a small window of about 15 years in which they could’ve been manufactured.

Does the School Still Sell Stuff like This?

Most definitely! Mugs, shot-glasses, tea-towels, books, clothing, and – yes, even cufflinks – are still sold by the school. They’re purchased from the school’s campus shop, or are offered to students for purchase as part of their graduation-memorabilia package, when they leave school at the age of eighteen.