Antique Decanter Boxes
A fitted wooden case, divided inside to hold two, three or four glass decanters upright, made for the sideboard or for travel.
What Is A Decanter Box?
A rectangular timber case with a compartmented interior shaped to the decanters it was built for. The form belongs to the same tradition of fitted domestic and campaign boxes as tea caddies, knife boxes and writing slopes, and was made from the eighteenth century onward to keep heavy cut glass upright and protected.
Mahogany is the wood you'll meet most often, named in a fifth of titles on Sellingantiques, with oak, walnut and coromandel behind it in ones and twos. Counts given in titles run to three and four decanters. Several say "complete" or "with decanters", dealer shorthand that the glass is still with the case.
Two clusters of dates dominate. Georgian and Regency mahogany boxes, some inlaid, some in flame-figured veneer, sit around 1790 to 1835. Victorian oak and walnut boxes, often brass-bound, cluster in the 1870s and 1880s. Where a listing says only "Georgian" or "19th Century", the dealer has declined to narrow it further.
Round the edges sit brass-bound travelling and campaign cases, a French military style box, a Dutch travelling box with glasses, and the occasional decorative turn: a box disguised as a book, a miniature bombé bureau that opens as a decanter box, an oak box combining decanters with games.
What Separates Them
Whether the original glass is still there does more than anything else. Titles carrying "complete", "with 4 original decanters" or "and contents" sit well above the boxes described as cases alone, and they're a clear minority. One is fitted for two magnum decanters rather than a set of four.
Timber sorts the rest. Coromandel and amboyna occupy the upper end, with the top of the range in the sample a coromandel drinks box of about 1880. Plain oak and mahogany named without further description sit at the bottom. Between them come inlay and figured veneer: flame mahogany, rosewood with birdseye maple, Georgian inlaid work.
Size and count push the same way, four-decanter boxes above smaller cases, and brass mounting turns up consistently in the upper half whether the carcase is mahogany, walnut or oak. A stated travelling or military purpose does the same, the French military style box standing second highest in the sample.
Retail Price Guide 2026
Typical UK retail prices for decanter boxes, calculated from the Sellingantiques database of over a million retail prices indexed since 2003. This retail price guide relies exclusively on Sellingantiques data; no external sources or auction records are used, so the figures do not describe the wider market.
Dates on Sellingantiques run from 1790 to 1920, the earliest being a George III brass-bound mahogany box of 1790.
The Antique Decanter Boxes Glossary
- Fitted
- The interior is divided or shaped to the decanters it was made for, rather than left as an open cavity.
- Complete
- Dealer shorthand that the original glass is still with the box, used in several titles.
- Brass-bound
- Corners and edges reinforced with brass strapping, common on the travelling and campaign examples.
- Campaign
- Made for travel or military use, and built to take handling.
- Flame mahogany
- Mahogany cut to show a flared, flame-like figure, named in several Georgian and Regency titles.
- Coromandel
- A dense, dark, striped exotic timber, and the wood behind the highest-priced boxes in this archive.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many decanters does a box hold?
Titles that state a number run to two, three or four. Four is the count on the walnut and coromandel boxes at the larger end.
One box is fitted for two magnum decanters, oversized bottles, rather than a set of matching four.
Are the decanters usually still with the box?
Sometimes. Titles saying "complete", "with decanters", "with 4 original decanters" or "and contents" are a clear minority on Sellingantiques.
Where the glass is described it's called crystal or cut glass, with no factory named.
What woods were used?
Mahogany is the only wood common enough to register in its own right, appearing in about a fifth of titles.
Oak, walnut, coromandel, rosewood, birdseye maple, amboyna and burr birch each turn up in ones and twos. The exotic timbers sit at the top of the range.
What period do they date from?
The dated listings run from 1790 to 1920, and they fall in two groups rather than spreading evenly.
One is Georgian and Regency, roughly 1790 to 1835. The other is late Victorian, with the 1870s and 1880s each carrying five listings. Only three entries reach the twentieth century.
Were any made outside Britain?
A few. Two Dutch, two French, and a single Swedish burr birch table box, the one Scandinavian entry in the archive.
The French group includes a leather-bound box of 1910 and a military style box.
Why do listings vary so much in form?
Around two decanter boxes a year are listed on Sellingantiques, yet 28 different dealers have handled one. That works out at close to a box per dealer.
The heading also takes in some decorative relatives: a book-form box, a miniature bombé bureau that opens as a decanter box, an oak box combining decanters with games, and decanter-shaped tea caddies.