Darby's

[mrgrzeskowiak]

What kind of handcuffs were corrct for the period? 1860-65..
I searched the forum and came up empty.. The only thing I can find are those crappy darby cuffs..I have a pair of nickel plated darby's .one size, non-adjustable. Are those accurate?

[Hank Trent]

Re: Darby's

Nickel plating was more common post-war, and naturally there are many more postwar than prewar antiques running around, so my initial reaction would be to assume anything nickel-plated was postwar unless it could be specifically documented to the pre-war era.

Here's an 1894 article on the history of handcuffs, which includes some illustrations of earlier examples: http://www.handcuffs.org/strand_1894/index.html It's British, but specifically discusses a few American examples. The home page, www.handcuffs.org looks like it has links to lots other information for handcuff collectors, including a gallery of dated handcuff examples. I found it by searching google for handcuffs 1850 and handcuffs 1860.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@voyager.net