Numis Cufflinks
About us
Numis Cufflinks is an Irish-owned, Irish-based designer and retailer that combines ‘matched’ pairs of genuine, vintage coins and stylish cufflinks that can be worn by both ladies and gentlemen.
The enterprise is in startup mode.
There are currently three ranges available :-
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20th C Irish Decimal and Irish Pre-Decimal Coins
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20th C British Pre-Decimal Coins
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Historical Coin Cufflinks of the World
Irish Coin Cufflinks
Irish coins are not issued every year, therefore there are gaps in the numismatic record and we cannot supply coins to match everyone’s birthday.
Between 1928 and present, there are 16 ‘missing years’ when no suitable Irish coins were minted that can be used as cufflinks, i.e. 1929, 1938, 1951, 1954, 1957, 1970, 1972, 1973, 1977, 1981, 1983, 1984, 1987, 1989, 1991 and 2001.
Rarity is not determined by the number of coins minted (most of which we know) but by their survival rates (which we don’t know).
Mintages of Irish coins was a small fraction of those minted in the UK, so these Irish coins are relatively scarce when compared to their British counterparts.
In 1927, a committee led by Nobel laureate, W.B. Yeats ran a competition and chose the winning designs for the first Irish coins.
A year later, we had a beautiful set of 8 of critically-acclaimed coins – three of which are small enough today to be used as cufflink inserts.
The Irish Free State came to an end in 1937, when the citizens voted by a relatively narrow majority to adopt a new constitution. The new Constitution of Ireland (Bunreacht na hÉireann) repealed the 1922 Constitution, and came into effect on 29 December 1937.
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The state was re-named Ireland (Éire in the Irish language)
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The obverse (front) coin design changed to reflect this change
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A new office of President of Ireland was instituted in place of the Governor-General of the Irish Free State
On 15 February 1971, known as Decimal Day, Ireland and the UK simultaneously decimalised their currencies. When the old pounds, shillings, and pence system was in operation, Ireland operated within the Sterling Area, effectively a single monetary area.
The Irish pound had come into existence as a separate currency in 1927, but the terms of the Irish Currency Act obliged the Irish currency commissioners to redeem Irish pounds on a fixed 1:1 basis, and so day-to-day banking operations continued exactly as they had been before the creation of the Irish Pound (Punt Éireannach).
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This state of affairs continued until 1979 when Irish obligations to the European Monetary System forced them to break the historic link with Sterling
In Ireland, all pre-decimal coins, except the shillings (1/-), florins (2/-) and ten shilling (10/-) coins, were called in during the initial process between 1969 to 1972.
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The 1/- and 2/- were recalled in 1993 and 1994, respectively
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This was because new, smaller 5p and 10p coins were issued
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Our 5p and 10p coin cufflinks only contain these ‘smaller’ coins
