Antique Jump Rope

I am always on the search for various antique or old school workout products.  One that has always been great fun is the jump rope or skipping rope as it is referred to in England.  The origins of the jump rope are not certain.  It is believed to have evolved during Medieval times, but no one really knows.

Today's jump ropes are really fast and doing moves called double or tripple unders is common place.


Many of the older jump ropes were made simply from rope, but some found that using wooden bobbin for handles worked really well.

Here is a vintage jump rope I picked up.  It has beautiful, naturally aged antique wooden bobbin handles.  They're solid and in excellent condition, with solid brass ring fittings - for reinforcement, when they carried yarn in a woolen mill factory, long ago.

The rope cord itself, is derived entirely from natural, tightly woven jute fibers (the main component in high quality twine).

The handles are identical, and are engraved; one with "SALT.SALTAIRE", the other handle with "SALTS".   This indicates that they originally belonged to the Salt's Mill. The famous Salt's Mill textile factory was founded in 1851 in the Victorian village of Saltaire, in West Yorkshire, England.