Are most of these actually snuff boxes?

Yes. Snuff appears in 91 of 201 titles on Sellingantiques, so the pocket and table snuff box is the single most common thing under the heading. Tobacco jars come next at 26 titles, then brass boxes at 25. Cigar humidors and smokers' cabinets make up a smaller run.

What makes a Dutch tobacco box different?

The recognisable type is an eighteenth-century engraved brass box, sometimes copper, and 22 titles name Dutch work. Subjects can be pictorial. One copper box of the late seventeenth century depicts Calvin and Luther. Alongside the Dutch run sits a brass and copper tin commemorating the Battle of Minden of 1759.

How old are these boxes usually?

Dealers file them broadly. Sixty-three listings say only 19th century, 28 say 18th century, and Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian labels add style rather than years. Where a clean year is given, and that is 47 listings out of 201, the run is 1800 to 1930, clustering in the 1890s, 1850s and 1900s. A few pieces reach further back, including a set of three seventeenth-century tobacco boxes.

Which are the highest-priced examples?

Gold snuff boxes. The top of the range is 18ct and 14ct work, with one Paris box recorded at 98 grams and two silver-gilt boxes weighed at 82.7g and 83g. Lead, pewter, tin and pottery pieces sit at the other end.

Do figural and novelty boxes turn up often?

They recur, though the oddest are one-offs: a japanned papier mâché horse's hoof, a copper and brass bellows, a fruitwood box carved as a wood plane, a hardwood football, and a hand holding a pinch of snuff. Black Forest carving is a steadier presence, with bears, owls, monkeys and dogs, joined by pottery and terracotta bulldog and dog-head jars. Carved figural pieces reach the upper part of the range.

Where do these boxes come from?

Dutch and English work makes up the steady run, with Continental brass and copper boxes forming a clear group of their own. Other origins are occasional: single Japanese, Scandinavian, Russian, Swiss, Middle Eastern, Anglo-Indian and African-American examples appear. Around 24 tobacco boxes come to market on Sellingantiques in a year, listed by 74 different dealers over time, so almost every dealer who handles them handles them singly.

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Antique Tobacco Boxes

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Small lidded containers made to hold tobacco in its various forms: powdered snuff for the pocket or table, cut leaf kept moist in a jar, and cigars shut away in a cabinet.