Every pair of map cufflinks that leaves my workbench starts life as a piece of paper. The sort of paper with foxing at the edges and a faint smell of dusty bookshops. But, before it becomes something someone wears on their wedding day, or gives to their father, or keeps in a box to pass on, it goes on a bit of a journey!
I don't get asked very often where the maps come from, but I shall tell you anyway. Secondhand bookshops, rummaging around in boxes at car boot sales, and occasionally charity shops put out old atlases, though I worry they throw far more away then they ever sell. If I'm wrong about this, do let me know.
Hunting Down the Right Maps
Vintage atlases are my favourite source. A single atlas from the 1940s or 1970s might contain dozens of usable maps, each one a different town, county, or corner of the world. Occasionally customers offer me their own family maps, piles of dusty pink Orndance Survey maps of Bournemouth, Carnarvon, The Trossachs or Basingstoke, that once belonged to their parents or grandparents. They'd be brought out for family holidays in the car.
Sometimes in these atlases and maps, there are handwritten notes about which junction to take, and hand-drawn additional maps and lists of routes. Notes about a sister in law that lives somewhere near Albuquerque, and how to get there. This was way before mobile phones or the internet, and getting lost was much easier.
They are people's memories, of travels once taken, places seen, people visited.
But what do I need from a map? What I'm looking for is legibility, character, and the right scale. A map needs to show enough detail that when it's cut down to cufflink size, you can still read the place names. That's trickier than it sounds, deending on the placename. If it's very long, the scale has to be exactly right. Some maps are too sparse while others are too dense. The best map is once that tells a story at a glance.
Preparing the Paper
Once I've found the right source, the work begins. Vintage paper is fragile, and it can be brittle, uneven and creased from years of being folded. I work carefully to flatten and stabilise each sheet before I do anything else.
Then comes the cutting. Each cufflink face is tiny, so a circle about the size of a thumbnail, so precision matters enormously. I cut by hand, checking and rechecking that the location the customer has asked for is centred, readable, and sitting correctly within the frame. If someone has asked for the street where they got married, or the village where they grew up, that detail needs to be central and prominent.
Setting the Map
I set the cut map into the cufflink finding, by which I mean the metal bezel, and seal it under a clear glass dome. This is what protects the paper and gives the finished cufflink depth. It also enhances the clarity and colour of the beautiful map designs underneath.
I use both silver plated and bronze plated settings. Each have their own special charms. The silver plated settings are bright, fresh and give the colours of the maps a real zing. The bronze ones have a warm, antique feel that suits older maps well. It's really down to personal taste.
The Personalisation
This is the part I love most. Every order comes with a location request, and no two are ever quite the same. I've made custom map cufflinks centred on tiny hamlets that barely appear on modern maps, on the exact street corner where someone proposed, on the harbour where a grandfather worked for forty years.
Sometimes customers aren't sure which map era to use. I'm always happy to chat through the options and find the version that feels right for the story they're trying to tell.
Who Are They For?
Personalised map cufflinks make a particularly meaningful gift for anyone with a strong connection to place. Some of my favourite orders have been:
- Wedding cufflinks — centred on the church, the venue, or the town where the couple met. A gift from a bride to a groom, or from parents to a son on his wedding morning.
- Anniversary gifts — marking the place where it all began, whether that's a first date, a first home, or a honeymoon destination.
- Retirement gifts — celebrating a career spent in a particular place, or a lifetime in a beloved town.
- Father's Day and birthday gifts — for the man who has everything, but doesn't yet have his hometown set in silver on his cuffs.
The bronze vintage map cufflinks are especially popular as gifts — there's something about the warm tones that feels particularly personal and considered.
A Note on the Maps Themselves
I'm sometimes asked whether I feel any conflict about cutting up old maps. It's a fair question, and I do think about it. I only use maps that are already damaged, incomplete, or duplicated, and I would never cut a map that has value as a whole object. And I like to think that by setting a piece of an old map into something wearable, I'm giving it a new form of life. It gets to be looked at, touched, and admired again, just in a different way.
If you'd like to talk through a personalised map cufflinks order, whether you have a specific location in mind or just an idea, please do get in touch. I love these conversations.
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