What were these cupboards used for?

Domestic food storage. The pierced or slatted upper stage let air circulate around bread and cheese, keeping them off the floor and away from vermin, while the base below closed away other provisions. The court cupboard form under the same heading worked differently, as an open-shelf display and storage press.

Why are so many of them Welsh?

The form was long-lived vernacular furniture in Wales, and dealers say so in the titles: 28 of 50 use the word Welsh. Three go further to a district, North Wales, Snowdonia and Anglesey, each appearing once. Welsh oak examples cluster in the upper half of the range.

Close to it. Oak appears in 35 of the 50 titles and runs across the whole price range. The exceptions are a handful of pine cupboards, one Georgian Snowdonia example among them, and a single English elm court cupboard dated c.1757. Two oak pieces are described as in paint.

How old are most of them?

The dating is usually a bracket. Georgian leads the dealers' dated field, with 19th Century and 1800s behind it, and titles often add a circa figure the dated field leaves out, c.1800, c.1810, c.1820, c.1830. Only 12 listings carry a clean year, and those run from 1800 to 1920.

A Welsh two-tier cupboard. The word appears in two titles, and one dealer glosses it as a court cupboard. The earliest piece in the archive is a Welsh oak deuddarn dated circa 1680.

How often do these come up for sale?

Around five reach the market on Sellingantiques in a year, and 25 different dealers have listed one across the archive. That works out at roughly two listings per dealer, so no single dealer specialises in them.