{"product_id":"essex-crystal-sailboat-cufflinks-gold-filled-reverse-intaglio","title":"Vintage Essex Crystal Sailboat Cufflinks, Sta-Lokt 1\/20 12K Gold-Filled - Reverse Intaglio","description":"\u003cp\u003eA pair of snap-button cufflinks set with \u003cstrong\u003ehalf-inch reverse intaglio crystals painted with a sailboat\u003c\/strong\u003e. The backs are marked \u003cstrong\u003eSTA-LOKT\u003c\/strong\u003e and \u003cstrong\u003e1\/20 12K\u003c\/strong\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThat mark is why they still look like gold.\u003c\/strong\u003e Gold-filled is not plating - it is a layer of gold mechanically bonded to a base-metal core, and American law requires it to be at least one twentieth of the total weight. That makes it something like a hundred times thicker than electroplate. It is the reason hundred-year-old gold-filled still reads as gold while plated pieces from the same decade wore through to brass long ago. \u003cstrong\u003e1\/20\u003c\/strong\u003e is the weight fraction; \u003cstrong\u003e12K\u003c\/strong\u003e is the purity of the gold used.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSta-Lokt is a pun, and a good one.\u003c\/strong\u003e It means \u003cem\u003estay locked\u003c\/em\u003e. These are snap links: a small raised button releases them rather than a swivel bar, and you can see the post and button on the reverse. The trade dates Sta-Lokt to the 1920s.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe technique is the thing.\u003c\/strong\u003e A dome of rock crystal is carved into from the flat back, then painted from behind, then usually backed with mother of pearl. Looked at through the dome, the image floats - it has depth it should not have, and it shifts slightly as you turn it. Nothing else in jewellery does that.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAnd the name is wrong, which is the good part.\u003c\/strong\u003e These are called Essex crystals after William Essex, who was appointed enameller to Queen Victoria in 1839. He had nothing whatever to do with them. Collectors simply assumed that work this fine must be his, and the name stuck to a craft he never practised. The likelier originators are Emile Marius Pradier of Belgium around 1860 - who left the only known signed example - or Thomas Cook in England in the early 1860s, whose pupil Thomas Bean carried it on, and then Bean's son, and then his grandson.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWhere these sit in that story.\u003c\/strong\u003e The English Victorian work is the high point of the craft, and by the 1920s the trade had spread to France and America and the quality was no longer what it had been. So a Sta-Lokt pair is American, and at the tail of the good period rather than its height.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe subject is period-correct.\u003c\/strong\u003e Men's reverse intaglios ran to racing horses, game birds, dogs and boats; women's to flowers and monograms. A sailboat belongs squarely in the first list.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe craft is now close to extinct. There are very few people left who can carve and paint one.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOne of one. Sold as found.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eNo returns - as is.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Unsigned","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44423930576983,"sku":"MT-TR-187","price":298.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0034\/8692\/files\/IMG_1386.jpg?v=1794376787","url":"https:\/\/shopmille.com\/products\/essex-crystal-sailboat-cufflinks-gold-filled-reverse-intaglio","provider":"MILLE","version":"1.0","type":"link"}