Gary Cooper's Cufflinks

At first glance, I thought these Bakelite buttons were a pair of old cufflinks. As it turns out, they are actually buttons—though hardly your everyday shirt trinkets. Strangely angular and sliced twice at one side for an art deco effect, they have the look of stylized hammer heads. Somehow handsome in their abstract slants and curves, these would've trimmed a suit with dashing aplomb. Circa 1925.

Gary Cooper was a movie star of the highest ranking and a debonair knight of the early Hollywood film scene. I was recently watching TV during the wee hours when one of his biggest movies, Morocco, came on (also starring Marlene Dietrich). Inspired by the picture, I did a little research on the film's chief hero. Starting with silent films in the 1920's and then into a steady stream of talkies, Cooper famously played men of action: unruffled cowboys, soldiers, sailors, adventurers and gallant husbands. Owing to his on-screen charisma, he's widely considered a "God" of classic American cinema (though not quite to the extent of Valentino). So there's a little bit of history for you. The Tom Cruise of yesteryear, Gary Cooper was one of the original Dapper Dan's of the highfalutin Jazz Age. His death in 1961 caused a national lament and a fathomless pileup of broken hearts.

-Sherbert McGee