Original vintage ‘art deco’ style gunmetal medallion inlaid into a keyfob in tan oak bark tanned hide

Over the last 15 years we have made many keyrings for customers using their own badges and ( painstakingly ! ) adapting their badges for mounting into leather keyfobs .

Some of these badges have been very high value items and in some cases the customer has had the badge made as a one-off by a badgemaker or jewellery manufacturing business .

This particular example probably eclipses them all and was actually made to showcase our handmade & handstitched keyrings .

Our other small business Bolingbroke Saddlery ( now combined with Classic Leather Fobs Ltd) used to make a variety of leather keyrings and this keyring was stamped with our Bolingbroke Saddlery details .

Those who have seen & handled this keyring suggest that it should be regarded as jewellery rather than as a keyring .

This superb vintage medallion came to us in a rather expensive collection of vintage keyrings and does stand us at quite an outlay – but we couldn’t resist it .

It is in gunmetal ( or possibly bronze ) and measure 1.25″ ( 32mm ) in diameter.

As can be seen it depicts a four spoked steering wheel in the grasp of a pair of hands which emerge from the sleeves of a traditional linen jacket and are in the correct ’10 minutes to two ‘ driving position .

The medallion will probably date from the late 1950s but was produced in the ‘art deco’ style of the 1920s.

We bonded the medallion onto a thin oversized brass baseplate which allowed us to inlay it into a leather keyfob giving complete security – the baseplate is actually hand sewn into the keyring .

This is a method of inlaying badges into leather keyfobs which we have used for many years with complete success .

The leather which we have chosen is oak bark tanned hide in London tan colour :-

Oak bark tanned leather is prized throughout the world and is a brave survivor of England’s past before the Industrial Revolution transformed the use of natural materials.

There is just one remaining tannery producing oak bark tanned leather in the hills of Devon and still powered by a waterwheel – the site has been a tannery since Roman times.

The oak bark is harvested from coppice oakwoods in the Lake District and contains the necessary tannins which convert the Devon cowhide into this leather.

The tanning method has changed very little over the years and is a long gentle process which protects the natural fibres of the hide and takes anywhere from 12 -24 months to produce each hide which is then hand finished by the curriers.

The resulting leather is prized for it’s quality, durability & finish and is a shining beacon standing out in this 21st Century world where uniformity & bland industrially produced plastic materials have replaced almost everything which went before.

This outstanding hide is used for keyrings for those customers who demand the very best and where ‘nothing else will do ‘

There is no other leather which actually smells so richly of ‘leather’.

The splitring has been chosen to match the gunmetal medallion – it is in an ‘antiqued’ bronze finish .

It is most unlikely that we will ever find another medallion like this one – and we regard this keyring as a talisman which should accompany it’s owner on his or her journeys through life .

An expensive talisman of course …………..but then what personal items does a driver pass on at the end of the day apart from a cherished wrist watch and a very special item of jewellery ?

A special keyring like this one will continue travelling long after the original owner has completed their final journey .