Antique Storage Trunks
A lidded box for linen, blankets, plate or the road, most often an oak coffer or blanket chest, sometimes a bound travelling trunk or a camphor-wood chest brought home from the East.
Antique Storage Trunks
The heading covers lidded storage boxes of every kind, but oak dominates. Of the listings on Sellingantiques, 320 titles say chest, 312 name oak and 271 call the piece a coffer. What you are most likely to meet is a panelled or boarded oak coffer made to hold textiles at the foot of a bed.
Lidded chests are among the oldest domestic furniture forms, used across Europe from the medieval period for textiles, grain and valuables, and to move goods. Boarded and joined chests came before the chest of drawers, and the mule chest sits between the two: a coffer with drawers built into the base, named in 64 titles.
Beside the oak run two other seams. Pine appears in 114 titles, painted in 61, taking in Scottish and Welsh kists and Scandinavian and Hungarian painted boxes. Travelling and campaign trunks in leather, canvas, hide and metal binding make up roughly a tenth, alongside camphor-wood and teak chests from the China and India trade.
Dating is loose. The structured dated field runs from 1680 to 1940, but only 174 of 789 listings carry a clean year, so century and reign labels do the work: 19th Century on 160, 17th Century on 103, 18th Century on 90, with Victorian and Georgian used on many others. Read those as brackets. Titles reach earlier than the dated field does, into Tudor and 16th century territory.
Where The Range Splits
Age as titled does most of the sorting. The top of the range is held by 16th and early 17th century oak, walnut and Spanish chests, and by early 17th century coffers, while late Victorian and 1920s-30s pine trunks sit at the bottom. Occasional pieces carry a date cut into the wood itself, with 1658, 1690, 1754 and 1837 among those in titles.
Surface decoration is the next divide. Carved appears in 64 titles, and arcaded fronts, linenfold panels, marquetry inlay and figural medallions cluster well above plain boarded work. In the painted group the same logic runs on original paint and untouched patina, with hand-painted Swedish and Alpine chests sitting high among the pine.
Two smaller things lift a piece. Regional attribution is a habit in this category, with Welsh named in 28 titles and single examples claiming Lakeland, Yorkshire, Westmorland, Dorset, the Gower peninsula and Ottery St Mary. Fitted interiors and metalwork count too: zinc linings, internal drawers, candle boxes, and the iron or brass binding on trunks and silver chests.
Antique Storage Trunks Retail Price Guide 2026
Typical UK retail prices for storage trunks, 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.
Camphor wood is the signature imported timber for trunks on Sellingantiques, named 58 times, and nearly always paired with brass fittings or campaign use.
The Antique Storage Trunks Glossary
- Coffer
- An early lidded chest, usually oak, either boarded or joined and panelled. The word appears in 271 titles, more often than any other term after chest itself.
- Mule chest
- A coffer with one or more drawers built into the base, named in 64 titles. Samples run from two-drawer pine up to three-drawer Georgian oak and mahogany.
- Blanket box
- A domestic chest for textiles, often pine, used in 47 titles. It tends to describe later and plainer pieces than coffer does.
- Plank or six-plank coffer
- Boarded construction, built from wide boards rather than a frame with panels set into it. The simplest way an early chest was put together.
- Kist
- Scottish and northern word for a chest, used in several pine listings. Coffer bach, sometimes spelled coffor bach, is the Welsh term for a small chest, some barely bigger than a box.
- Linenfold
- Carved panel worked to imitate folded cloth, named in early oak examples. Dome top, meaning a curved lid, turns up in 18 titles on travelling trunks and Swedish coffers.
Antique Storage Trunks: Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between a coffer and a trunk?
Coffer is the word used for an early lidded chest, usually oak, boarded or joined and panelled, and it appears in 271 titles. These were domestic pieces for linen, blankets and valuables.
Trunk in this category leans towards travel: leather, canvas, hide and metal-bound boxes made for the coach, ship and rail, plus campaign trunks made for military service. Bound appears in 43 titles, campaign in 40.
Why are so many of these described only by century?
The structured dated field runs from 1680 to 1940, but only 174 of 789 listings carry a clean year. Century labels fill the gap: 19th Century on 160, 17th Century on 103, 18th Century on 90.
Reign and era words do the rest, with Victorian on 69 and Georgian on 44. Decade tags are thin and late, so 19th Century or Victorian works as a bracket rather than a date.
What is a mule chest?
A coffer with one or more drawers built into the base. It sits between the plain lidded chest and the chest of drawers, and the term appears in 64 titles.
Samples run from two-drawer pine through to three-drawer Georgian oak and mahogany.
Are camphor wood chests common in this category?
Camphor is the signature imported timber, named 58 times across its spellings, and it is almost always paired with brass fittings or campaign use. The aromatic wood was used for insect-proof storage of textiles.
Teak appears in 20 titles, Chinese in 20 and Indian in 18. These came home through trade and military service, alongside Zanzibar, Ceylonese, Korean and Japanese pieces.
How big do these chests get?
Size language cuts both ways. Eighty titles say large, reaching monumentally large and enormous, while 52 say small.
At the smaller end sit miniature Welsh coffer bach barely bigger than a box, and deed boxes. Silver chests, iron- or steel-bound oak boxes for plate, are a distinct minor line at 21 titles.
Does painted pine sell alongside the oak?
It does. Pine appears in 114 titles and painted in 61, taking in Scottish and Welsh kists, Victorian stripped pine and Continental painted work.
Scandinavian painted chests are a recognisable seam, with 16 titles naming Swedish pieces plus Scandinavian, Danish, Alpine, Hungarian and Romanian marriage and dome-top chests. Within that group, original paint sits at the higher end.