What wood are bible boxes made from?

Oak, overwhelmingly. It appears in 98 of the 123 titles in this archive, and the plain boarded oak box is what turns up most often. Elm appears in a scatter of listings, including a dated and initialled one. Georgian and Victorian mahogany boxes also turn up, at the cheaper end of the range.

Are bible boxes always 17th century?

No, though the archive leans that way. The dealer date field gives 54 listings to the 17th century and 26 to the 18th, with a handful of Georgian and 19th-century entries behind them. Only 19 of the 123 listings carry a clean year. The rest are given as centuries or reign names, so the century in a title is a judgement rather than a record.

Why do so many boxes sit on later stands?

A stand turns a table-top box into a small standing desk, and the combination has been made up long after the box itself. One in eight listings on Sellingantiques is a box on a stand. Dealers are open about it. Nine titles use the word "later", and "17th Century & Later" is the recognised way of describing box and base together.

What does a carved date on the front mean?

It usually records the owner rather than the maker, cut alongside a pair of initials on the front board. The "MB 1695" box is the pattern. Dates cut into the boxes themselves run from 1640 through 1663 and 1666. These pieces sit in the upper part of the range.

Are bible boxes sold under other names?

Yes. The same boarded form is listed as a desk box, table box, deed box and document box, depending on which use the dealer is emphasising. Four listings call it a verger's desk or bible case, an ecclesiastical version that sits at the top of the range.

How many bible boxes come up for sale?

Only about a dozen a year. It is not a form anyone stocks in depth. Spread across the archive, 63 different dealers have handled one. Almost every oak dealer meets a bible box occasionally, and few see many.