Antique Leather Chests between £0 and £0
A wooden or canvas carcase clad in hide, studded and metal-bound, built to carry clothes, papers and household goods by coach and by ship.
What Are Antique Leather Chests?
Leather-covered storage and travelling chests: a carcase, frequently camphor wood, clad in hide that is tacked down with brass or iron studs and banded with metal straps. Lids are either flat or domed. Leather-covered chests were made from at least the 17th century as secure, weather-resistant containers for transport.
The piece you meet most often is a trunk rather than a chest. "Trunk" appears in 151 of 263 titles against "chest" in 61, and the trimmings named most often are brass, studded and bound. Read that as a brass-studded, metal-bound travelling trunk of 19th-century date, flat or dome-topped.
Around that core sit clear branches. Studded and brass-bound coaching and travelling trunks form the largest single group, roughly a third to a half of the category. Steamer, cabin and shipping trunks account for about one in ten, camphor wood chests and campaign trunks roughly one in eight, and leather ottomans and box seats about one in six. Chinese export and China trade trunks, leather over camphor with brass banding, make up roughly one in twenty. A few leather-topped oddities are filed here too: a brass log bin, a walking-stick stand, a pair of chesterfields.
Dating is broad rather than exact. "19th Century" alone accounts for 74 entries, with Victorian, Regency and "18th Century" also given as period words instead of years. Where decades appear they cluster in the 1850s, 1870s, 1880s, 1900s and 1920s. Dealer-entered dates run from 1700 to 1950, so a title reading "19th Century" is a century-wide estimate.
Where The Range Sits
Metalwork does most of the work. Brass studding and full brass binding lift a trunk, and the higher-priced titles pile the terms together: brass-bound and studded leather-covered camphor. A plain, undecorated 19th-century or 1920s trunk with little metal sits at the bottom of the range.
Scale and decoration on the hide come next. "Large" appears in 25 titles, and the large and extra-large camphorwood and Canton trunks fall in the upper part. Painted, lacquered, tooled or embossed leather, and gilt work, pushes a piece up; bare hide does not.
Named origin separates too. Chinese export, Spanish and Continental attributions sit above unattributed English trunks, with Spanish the most frequent Continental note at 12 titles, ahead of French at 10. Furniture form also counts: ottomans on mahogany, rosewood or satin birch frames occupy the upper half, while the top of the range is held by 20th-century branded travelling luggage and a pair of 18th-century Spanish trunks.
Retail Price Guide 2026
Typical UK retail prices for leather chests between £0 and £0, 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.
19th Century is the period label used most on Sellingantiques for leather chests, with Victorian next and the 1920s third.
The Antique Leather Chests between £0 and £0 Glossary
- Trunk
- The commonest word in these titles for a leather-covered travelling box, flat or domed. It outnumbers "chest" by better than two to one.
- Studded
- Brass or iron nail heads fixing the hide down, set in rows or patterns. Named in 45 titles.
- Bound
- Metal straps banding the carcase for strength. Thirty-nine titles say bound, 15 of them specifically brass bound.
- Dome top
- A curved or coopered lid rather than a flat one. Fifteen titles say dome, 14 dome top.
- Camphor wood
- Aromatic timber used for the carcase or lining to deter moth, named in 30 titles and the signature timber of the category.
- Ottoman
- A lidded upholstered box seat, sometimes buttoned or waisted, sometimes on a hardwood frame. Forty-six titles, making it the largest non-luggage form here.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many come up for sale each year?
About 25 leather chests and trunks come to market on Sellingantiques in a year.
Supply is spread wide. A total of 105 different dealers have listed one, close to one dealer per two listings, so no single specialist dominates.
What is the difference between a coaching and a steamer trunk?
A coaching trunk was sized for a carriage boot and is usually studded and iron bound. Ten titles use the term.
Steamer trunks are purpose-made ocean-liner luggage, often canvas and leather over wood. Seventeen titles name them, with cabin trunks meant to stand in the cabin rather than the hold.
Why is camphor wood used so often?
Camphor is aromatic, and it was used for the carcase or the lining to deter moth from stored clothing. It is named in 30 titles.
It travels with brass. The Chinese export and China trade trunks are almost always leather over camphor with brass banding.
Are the earliest examples common?
No. Seventeenth-century pieces are the rarest stratum, appearing only a handful of times: a Spanish arcón, a Charles II chest on stand, two French brass-studded chests.
The earliest dated piece is a Queen Anne period studded leather dome top trunk given as 1700, and the latest a crocodile suitcase dated 1950.
Do these ever turn up in pairs?
Often enough to notice. Several listings have offered pairs of Chinese, Spanish or Edwardian trunks together.
One pair was sold as sofa side tables, which is how a good many redundant trunks earn their keep now, as domestic storage and seating.
What unusual forms are filed under this heading?
Not everything is luggage. A leather-topped brass log bin, a country house umbrella and walking-stick stand, a portmanteau cabin wardrobe, a hat trunk and a pair of chesterfield sofas have all appeared here.
Ottomans, window seats, hall seats and daybeds form a steadier presence, about one in six of the category.