Manhole Cufflinks

by Trey Evans (RSS feed)
Sep 1st 2006 at 11:02AM

Did you know that manhole covers are round because that's the only shape that can't fit through itself when made slightly larger than the hole? Just passing that on, Dad told me that years ago and I thought it was fitting. Anyways, we've covered quite a few interesting cufflinks here on Luxist, but I've never seen anything quite like this. I stumbled accross these while trying to find silk knots and was intrigued enough to click through the Google Ad. Cufflinks.com has miniature manhole cufflinks. Cities include Boston, NY, Chicago, London, Paris, and Rome. Each pair is $65 and I must say that though they're all very cool, Boston is the most visually striking but the squareness of the Roman ones is interesting.

Tags: cufflinks, manhole, manhole cufflink, ManholeCufflink

Filed under: Apparel

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Ben Brockert Dec 1st 2006 1:50AM

Round isn't actually the only shape that won't fall in. You can also make them in a rounded triangle shape, where the side opposite a vertex is an arc of a circle with radius equal to the length of the side of the triangle.

Or, for those not math-inclined, like a triangle that's been inflated.

Despite the shape, covers do regularly fall into drains. Sometimes the collar that the cover sits on breaks. Sometimes the cover does. Though they are very heavy and very strong, they're cast steel, so they'll break instead of bending if too much weight is put on them.