Antique Cufflinks between £0 and £0
A pair of fasteners for stiff shirt cuffs, two decorated faces joined by a chain or a rigid bar, worn where a man's shirt had no buttons.
What Are Antique Cufflinks?
Cufflinks grew out of the 17th- and 18th-century sleeve button and became standard once shirts with stiff, buttonless cuffs came into general wear in the 19th century. They fasten a cuff and nothing else, but their decorated outer faces made them one of the few pieces of jewellery a man wore day to day.
The pair you are most likely to meet on Sellingantiques is an enamelled Art Deco gents' pair of about 1930. 'Art deco' appears in 92 of 212 titles and 'enamel' in 64, and 83 listings are placed in the 1930s, more than the 1920s, 1940s and 1950s put together. Geometric and modernist fronts, guilloche grounds and green-and-black colour schemes run right through that block.
Running alongside, and often the same pair, is the hallmarked gold link: 113 titles mention gold, 62 name 9ct and 21 name 18ct, usually chain-linked or double-sided ovals and rectangles. Silver and silver-gilt make up a smaller group, with Birmingham and Chester assay dates from the 1890s to the 1950s. Gem-set and mother-of-pearl dress pairs sit above them, and novelties turn up throughout: cabochon glass terriers, an Austin Mini, golfers, dumbbells, half sovereigns mounted as links.
The dealer date field runs 1860 to 1960, with 180 listings carrying a clean year. That makes it an unusually well dated corner of jewellery, and it also means a fair share of what sells as antique cufflinks is post-war: 30 listings sit in the 1960s, with smaller groups in the 1940s and 1950s. Victorian and Edwardian appear as era labels rather than years.
Where The Range Splits
Metal sets the floor and much of the ceiling. Solid 18ct, 15ct and 14ct pairs cluster in the upper half of the range; 9ct is far the commonest gold and sits below them. Rolled gold, gold plate, chrome and silver plate hold the bottom, and base metal with glass fronts holds the very bottom.
Above the metal, two things lift a pair. Stones do it plainly: diamond, sapphire, onyx, ruby, garnet and pearl settings all read in the upper reaches. A signature does it more sharply still, and a signed 18ct pair sits well clear of an unsigned equivalent of the same design. Unsigned Deco enamel, however good the geometry, stays unsigned.
Then the small documentary details. A legible assay office with a date year adds, and the offices named in titles are almost entirely Birmingham and Chester. So does completeness: 13 listings are boxed, and several pair the links with matching shirt or collar studs as a dress set rather than a pair on its own.
Retail Price Guide 2026
Typical UK retail prices for cufflinks between £0 and £0, calculated from the Sellingantiques database of over a million retail prices indexed since 2003. This retail price guide relies exclusively on Sellingantiques data; no external sources or auction records are used, so the figures do not describe the wider market.
The 1930s is the decade named most on Sellingantiques for cufflinks, with the 1960s next and the 1920s third.
The Antique Cufflinks between £0 and £0 Glossary
- Chain link
- Two faces joined by a short length of chain rather than a rigid bar, named in 18 titles.
- Double-sided
- Both ends of the link are decorated, so either face can be turned outward. Common wording on gold pairs.
- Torpedo
- An elongated bullet-shaped back that pivots side-on to pass through the buttonhole, then sits across it.
- 9ct / 18ct / 15ct
- Gold fineness in carats. 9ct dominates the archive with 62 titles, 18ct follows with 21, and 15ct, 14ct and 10ct appear in scattered pairs.
- Guilloche enamel
- Translucent enamel laid over an engine-turned ground, so the machine-cut pattern shows through the colour.
- Essex crystal
- A domed rock crystal carved hollow from behind and painted, seen once in the archive on a lodge pair.
Frequently Asked Questions
What period do most antique cufflinks come from?
The 1930s, by a wide margin. Of 212 listings, 83 are placed in that decade, more than the 1920s, 1940s and 1950s combined.
The dealer date field spans 1860 to 1960 overall, and 180 listings carry a clean year. The 1960s form the second largest block at 30.
Are antique cufflinks usually gold?
Gold appears in 113 of the titles, so it is the metal you meet most. 9ct leads it with 62 titles, then 18ct with 21, and there are scattered 15ct, 14ct and 10ct pairs.
Silver and silver-gilt make a smaller group of around 35 titles. Below both sit rolled gold, gold plate and chrome.
Why is Art Deco enamel so common in this category?
It is the single most repeated thing in the archive. 'Art deco' shows in 92 titles and 'enamel' in 64, and the two overlap constantly on geometric fronts of about 1930.
Sub-labels within that group include skyscraper patterns, guilloche grounds and green-and-black colour pairings. Nineteen titles use 'modernist' for the starkest of them.
Which assay offices appear on hallmarked pairs?
Birmingham and Chester, almost to the exclusion of anything else. Birmingham is named in 15 titles and Chester in several more, with dates running from 1871 through to the 1960s.
London turns up only on a couple of the top-of-range pieces.
Do cufflinks come with matching studs?
Some do. Several listings pair the links with shirt or collar studs as a dress set, and 13 arrive in a box.
Most are sold as a pair on their own, with 58 titles using the word pair and 26 specifying matching.
Are novelty and sporting designs found in this category?
Yes, scattered through it, perhaps one listing in fifteen. Golfers, racing subjects, cockerels, regimental and lodge designs all appear.
Several oddities show once and never again: cabochon glass terrier and Scottie dogs, an Austin Mini, silver dumbbells, expanding chrome links, a Victorian micro mosaic Grand Tour pair and half sovereigns mounted as links.