How many come up for sale each year?

About fourteen a year reach Sellingantiques, and 52 different dealers have listed one. That spread tells you it's a category most general dealers touch occasionally rather than one a few specialists control. The supply is steady rather than plentiful, and it arrives from all over the trade.

What period do most of them date from?

Of 125 listings, 65 carry a clean year and those run from 1860 to 1930. The 1920s is the largest single dated group at 27. The rest are given period words instead. "19th Century" accounts for 27 and "Victorian" for 18, so a large part of the archive is placed only within a broad half-century. Edwardian entries overlap the 1900s and 1910s dates.

Why are sea chests listed under this heading?

The heading is used broadly across the archive. Sea chests, ship's chests, shipwrights' chests, mail trunks, railway and carriage trunks and campaign trunks all appear under it, and the word "chest" turns up in a quarter or so of titles. The common thread is a large lidded box built to travel. What dominates is the canvas- or leather-covered wooden trunk with metal binding.

Are these trunks all English?

No. Origins named in titles reach well beyond England, with American, Scottish, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Indian, African and Chilean examples all present. Most of those appear just once. The named French and American luggage houses are the exception in another sense: a few listings only, but they hold the entire top of the range.

What does a wardrobe trunk actually do?

It stands on end and opens like a cupboard, on its long edge, to a hanging rail and a bank of small drawers. Clothes travelled hung rather than folded. About a tenth of the listings are this upright form, often titled cabin wardrobe or portmanteau. It belongs mainly to the later era of liner travel, while flat-topped trunks were made to stack in the hold.

How wide is the size range?

Unusually wide for one category name. The word "large" appears in nineteen titles, and those examples cluster in the upper half of the range. At the other end there's a single miniature, sitting near the bottom. Between them the sizes run from cabin-fitted to hold-sized.

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Antique Steamer Trunks

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A large lidded travelling box on a wooden carcass, covered in canvas or leather and bound with metal, built for a ship's cabin or hold rather than for carrying by hand.

A W Insall Original Small Travelling Campaign Trunk

19th century

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A W Insall Original Small Travelling Campaign Trunk

From Pareglio & Ayres Antiques Interiors

£295

FOR SALE

chests

19th century

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Victorian, Travelling Trunk Circa, 1875

From Frank Craig Antiques

£480

FOR SALE

chests

Antique Aux Etats Unis of Paris Steamer Trunk Luggage Circa 1920

1900 - 1920

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Antique Aux Etats Unis of Paris Steamer Trunk Luggage Circa 1920

From Regent Antiques

£2,750

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chests

1900 - 1920

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