Cuirass drivers were introduced by The London Golf Company in 1903. These clubs had a solid steel face plate and integral steel slip on the sole of the club. In producing the Cuirass driver, London Golf was banking on the idea that a spring steel face would provided added distance to golfers using the rubber-core golf balls recently introduced to the market. According to a portion of one review, the four screws used to fix the angled steel plate in place were installed under compression as to create tension that would bind the steel plate to the wood without any possibility of it becoming loose, and the steel edge would cut through awkward like like a cleek does. 

Unilke a Cuirass driver, this handsome Cuirass putter uses a brass face and a separate brass plate on the sole. Putters did not function in the same manner as drivers so they did not need to be built the same. Hence the London Golf Company dispensed with the one-piece spring steel face and integral steel slip on the sole and used two thick pieces of brass which give the shallow leadless head a proper overall weight. 

This putter, complete with its 34" original shaft and leather wrap grip, is from the historic Fred X Fry collection and bears his inventory label on the shaft.  Fry, the dean of American golf club collectors, was busy building his collection forty years before the Golf Collectors Society (now The Golf Heritage Society) was formed in 1970. Collecting with great passion, Fry amassed approximately 450 clubs, mostly putters. He cataloged, displayed, and cherished his treasures.  A number of national magazines ran articles about his collection of putters between 1936 and 1963. For more on Fry and to view some of the articles, Click Here.