What wood are cocktail cabinets usually made from?

Walnut, by a long way. It is named in 241 of 359 titles on Sellingantiques, with 147 of those specifying burr walnut. Everything else is thin on the ground. Mahogany appears in 15 titles, and satinwood, sycamore, kingwood, amboyna, birds-eye maple and Macassar ebony each turn up once or twice.

When were cocktail cabinets made?

The dated field runs from 1880 to 1950, but the mass is inter-war: 174 listings are given as 1930s and 139 as 1920s, together 313 of the 344 dated entries. The scattered outliers are mostly period brackets rather than firm years, covering a few Victorian, Edwardian and 1900s pieces. One cabinet carries an inscribed date of 1952.

Why are some called Queen Anne style?

Because the maker used an earlier revival vocabulary on an inter-war piece: cabriole legs, a shaped apron, a bow or serpentine front. Forty-two titles use the label, and they are dated to the same 1920s and 1930s as the Art Deco examples. Other revival tags in the archive include George I Revival and William and Mary style.

Are there cocktail cabinets that convert or fold away?

Yes, though they are a small handful. The archive holds pop-up and surprise cocktail tables, a revolving dry bar, a counterweighted bar and two metamorphic drinks bars. Each turns up only once or twice, which makes them the odd bodies of the category rather than a standard type.

How many come up for sale each year?

Around 22 cocktail cabinets come to market on Sellingantiques in a year. Sixty-four different dealers have listed one at some point, so no single dealer or stock holding shapes what the category looks like.

Do many cocktail cabinets carry a maker's name?

Most titles name nobody. Only one name clears three dealers in this archive, and the great bulk of the middle of the range is unattributed. Where a name does appear, it shows up as an attribution in the title, and those pieces sit at the top of the range.

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Antique Cocktail Cabinets

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A cocktail cabinet is a free-standing drinks cupboard that opens to a fitted interior of shelves, bar recesses and racks, built to hold bottles, glasses and mixing kit rather than china.