What's the difference between a carver and a side chair?

The carver has open arms and heads the table. The side chairs in the same set have none. Sets are listed with that split built into the title, most often as 6+2 or 8 (6+2), meaning six armless singles and two carvers.

Are carvers usually sold singly or in pairs?

Both turn up in quantity. Pair appears in 354 titles, and near-identical descriptions run as singles and as pairs right through the range. Dining sets that include one or two carvers make up a large block of the listings too, rather than standalone chairs.

What wood are they made from?

Mahogany leads, mostly in the Georgian and Regency taste. Oak, elm, walnut and ash account for a separate country-chair population. At the upper end you'll see figured mahogany, faded mahogany, burr walnut, satinwood and yew named in the wording. Beech and bentwood chairs sit at the other end.

How old are antique carver chairs?

The dated listings run from 1700 to 1950, with 550 carrying a clean year. A few sampled pieces reach further back, including a laburnum armchair given as c.1680 and Derbyshire back stools of the same date. "19th Century" is the largest single bucket. Georgian and Regency are used as style brackets as much as dates, and sampled pieces labelled that way carry circa dates from 1780 to 1830 elsewhere in the title.

Is a Windsor chair a carver?

An armed Windsor does the same job, and 119 titles in this category use the word. It's a turned stick-built chair with a solid seat, commonly elm. Back forms named here include wheelback, comb back, bow back and lath back. Yew-wood Windsors are the country timber that consistently reaches the upper part of the range.

Do carver chairs carry maker's names?

Some do. Titles turn up with Stamped, Labelled, with makers stamp or Attributed to, and that lifts a piece. No single workshop name recurs across the category, though. The named work is scattered, one listing at a time.