Antique Stamp Boxes
A small divided desk box, a few inches across, made to keep gummed postage stamps of two or three different values within reach of a writing table.
What Are Antique Stamp Boxes?
Small containers with one, two or three internal compartments, one per stamp denomination. The titles state the count more often than anything else: single, double, triple section. Divided boxes like these came in with prepaid postage in the mid-19th century, when a desk held stamps of several values at once.
Decorated Victorian woodwork is the single most likely encounter. "Postage" appears in 19 of the 49 listings on Sellingantiques, "Victorian" in 17, and Tunbridge ware mosaic in 10, a fifth of the whole field, including one built up as a portrait of the young Queen Victoria.
Brass and bronze desktop boxes form a second group of roughly the same size: a brass triple, a house-shaped box with two divisions, figural brass, two German Arts and Crafts boxes and an Austrian Art Deco bronze. Tartanware cases arrive as a cluster of seven, all Scottish, all dated 1880, each naming a clan pattern such as Campbell, McDuff or Prince Charlie, with One Penny and Penny Lilac printed to show which division took which stamp. Silver, silver-plate and cut crystal make up a smaller group, along with occasional leather-covered examples.
The dates run 1860 to 1920 and no further, with 33 listings carrying a clean year and the weight in the 1880s and 1890s. The remainder are given as "Victorian" or "19th Century", so a stated decade is often the dealer's estimate. A few titles use the word "stamped" about other pieces entirely, so the heading rewards a careful read.
Where The Range Sits
Material sets the floor and the ceiling. A plain mahogany and boxwood box sits at the bottom of the range, while silver with cut crystal, a silver inkwell and stamp box combined, and bronze examples occupy the upper half. Decorative technique lifts wood: Tunbridge ware mosaic, boulle inlay and mother of pearl all sit above undecorated surfaces.
Figural modelling is what reaches the top. A Black Forest owl with its glass eyes, a Black Forest monkey, a dog in a kennel, an olive wood bulldog, a bronze dog and a rat or mouse turn up rarely and sit above everything else. These are one-offs rather than a branch.
Within a type, more divisions and a named detail push upward. Triple and four-section boxes repeatedly outrank singles of the same material, and tartanware naming its specific clan pattern, or carrying a retailer's label, sits above unnamed woodwork. A boulle compendium in writing-box form tops the wooden group.
Retail Price Guide 2026
Typical UK retail prices for stamp 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.
Tartanware cases arrive on Sellingantiques in clusters: seven of them all dated 1880, each naming a different clan pattern, with denominations such as One Penny printed on.
The Antique Stamp Boxes Glossary
- Postage stamp box
- The usual full form of the name, and the wording used in nearly two of every five titles in this category.
- Triple, double or single section
- The number of internal compartments, one for each stamp denomination. Stated in most sample titles, and worth reading as the main descriptor it is.
- Tunbridge ware
- Mosaic decoration built up from tiny strips of wood. The commonest decorated wood type in this archive, present in exactly a fifth of titles.
- Tartanware
- Small wooden wares finished in printed clan tartan, always described as Scottish here, sometimes with a sliding lid or a pull-out drawer instead of a hinged one.
- Black Forest
- Carved animal woodwork. The owl example retains its glass eyes, and a carved monkey appears too.
- Boulle
- Brass-and-tortoiseshell style inlay. Two examples appear, one of them a compendium in writing-box form.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many compartments do stamp boxes have?
One, two or three, with the count named in the title far more often than any other detail. Triple sections appear in at least six of the sampled titles and doubles in at least seven.
The divisions correspond to the different stamp values a desk kept to hand. A few four-section boxes turn up as well.
What period do these boxes come from?
The dated listings run from 1860 to 1920 and nothing earlier appears. Sixty years, which is a tighter window than most box categories manage.
The 1880s and 1890s together account for 22 of the dated examples, making the last two Victorian decades the heart of the archive. The 1900s account for four and the 1920s for three.
Are stamp boxes always wooden?
No. Wood dominates, in Tunbridge ware mosaic, mahogany, boxwood, olive wood and carved Black Forest, but brass and bronze form a group of roughly similar size.
Silver and silver-plate appear too, often paired with cut crystal, and one box is leather-covered and came with a damper for moistening.
What is tartanware and why is it here?
Small Scottish wooden wares finished in printed clan tartan. Seven examples appear in this category, all dated 1880, arriving as a cluster rather than singly.
Each names a different pattern, among them McBeth, Campbell, Prince Charlie, McDonald, McLean and McDuff. Several have a sliding lid or a drawer, and denominations like One Penny and the Penny Lilac are printed on them.
Do any unusual forms turn up?
Regularly, and they rarely repeat. A silver-plated patent stamp applicator or dispenser, a house-shaped brass box with two divisions, an Austrian Art Deco bronze and a boulle compendium in writing-box form have all passed through.
Carved novelty animals are the other one-off strand: a Black Forest owl, a monkey, a dog in a kennel, an olive wood bulldog, a bronze dog and a rat or mouse.
How often do stamp boxes come up for sale?
Only about six a year are listed on Sellingantiques, so this is a thin category by volume.
Eighteen different dealers have handled one, though, so no single dealer holds it. Continental pieces are the scarcest part: two German Arts and Crafts brass boxes around 1900 and one Austrian example against an otherwise English and Scottish field.