Antique Mugs between £0 and £0
A handled drinking vessel with no saucer, made in pottery, porcelain or silver, for everyday drinking, for passing round, and for marking a birth or a royal occasion.
What Are Antique Mugs?
Mostly English, and mostly ceramic. Of 38 listings on Sellingantiques, porcelain is named in 11 titles and the rest run through pottery bodies: creamware, pearlware, Prattware, stoneware, ironstone and treacle glaze. Silver appears in 8, largely christening mugs and tankards. Titles split almost evenly between the words mug and cup.
The two-handled loving cup is the form you meet most often, named in 10 of the 38, and it covers a lot of ground: treacle-glazed pottery with modelled frogs inside, hand-painted Victorian examples, commemorative pieces and a miniature. Worcester is the one factory name that recurs, in 9 titles, running from First Period and Dr Wall cups and mugs of around 1770 to 1785 through Grainger Worcester to Royal Worcester of 1910 and 1920.
Alongside those sit English pottery mugs with Bacchus or satyr masks, Sunderland and Staffordshire pieces, and large harvest mugs, two of them with silver mounts or rims. Continental and Chinese cabinet pieces are the thin end: an Old Paris cabinet mug, a Berlin topographical cabinet cup, a Royal Vienna chocolate cup and a Chinese famille rose mug of the Qianlong period.
Dating is uneven. Only nine listings carry a clean year, and the dealers' date field otherwise falls back on 19th Century, 18th Century, Victorian, Regency or Georgian. Titles are often finer than the field, giving c.1770, c.1810, c.1830 or c.1850 where the field says only 18th Century. The twentieth century is present thinly, through a 1902 coronation cup, a 1935 jubilee loving cup, a 1937 coronation loving cup and a 1960 silver tankard.
Where Value Sits
A named eighteenth-century porcelain factory does more than anything else. First Period Worcester and Dr Wall pieces of around 1770 to 1785, and a named H & R Daniel loving cup of about 1830, sit well above the plain pottery mugs that hold the bottom of the range. Below them, an unattributed creamware or ironstone mug is bought on form and decoration alone.
Decoration is the second lever. Titles citing a rose Pompadour ground, wet blue with fancy birds, a green ground in the French taste, topographical Berlin views or allegorical Vienna scenes cluster in the upper half. So does the second handle: the loving cups spread right across the range, but they supply the top of it.
Two smaller things carry weight. Size gets stated boldly when there is size to state, with large in 8 titles and a six-inch tankard, a pint tankard and a one-litre pottery mug all named by capacity. A documented occasion works the same way, whether that is a coronation or jubilee, a hallmarked and dated christening mug, or a tankard inscribed for a named school with its ward number.
Retail Price Guide 2026
Typical UK retail prices for mugs 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.
Mugs are a small category on Sellingantiques: about three come to market a year, and 24 separate dealers have listed one.
The Antique Mugs between £0 and £0 Glossary
- Loving cup
- Two-handled cup meant to be passed between drinkers, and the commonest named form in this category, in 10 of 38 titles.
- Tankard
- Tall straight-sided drinking mug, used in these titles for silver as well as porcelain examples.
- Christening mug
- Small presentation mug, usually silver, given at a baptism. Several appear with their hallmark year quoted.
- First Period, or Dr Wall
- Titles for the earliest Worcester porcelain, dated here to around 1770 to 1785.
- Frog mug
- Pottery mug or loving cup with a modelled frog inside, revealed as the drink goes down. Two turn up, one with a newt.
- Cabinet cup
- Ornamental cup made for display rather than drinking, used here of Old Paris and Berlin porcelain.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a loving cup?
A cup with a handle on each side, made to be passed round a table. It is the most identifiable form in this category, named in 10 of the 38 listings on Sellingantiques.
They vary widely. The group takes in treacle-glazed pottery with frogs modelled inside, hand-painted Victorian examples, commemorative pieces and a miniature.
Which factory turns up most often?
Worcester, named in 9 of 38 titles. It covers a long stretch, from First Period and Dr Wall cups and mugs of around 1770 to 1785 through Grainger Worcester to Royal Worcester of 1910 and 1920.
No other name recurs. Every other factory in these titles comes from one or two listings.
Are silver mugs part of this category?
Yes. Silver is in 8 titles, mostly sterling christening mugs, including a George III example, along with a silver-plated tankard.
Silver also appears as mounts. Two harvest mugs are pottery with a silver mount or rim rather than silver throughout.
How old are most of them?
The dating is patchy. Only nine of the 38 listings carry a clean year, and the rest sit under broad labels: 19th Century, 18th Century, Victorian, Regency or Georgian.
Titles are often more precise than the date field, giving c.1770, c.1800, c.1820 or c.1850 where the field says only 18th Century. The twentieth century is thin, mainly commemoratives and a 1960 tankard.
Do commemorative mugs appear?
They form a thin but steady seam. A 1902 Scottish Wemyss coronation cup, a 1935 silver jubilee loving cup and a 1937 coronation loving cup all show up.
One piece is identified by institution instead of maker: a pint tankard marked for a named school with its ward number.
How often do these come up for sale?
It is a small category. Around three come to market a year on Sellingantiques.
They are spread thinly among dealers too. Twenty-four separate dealers account for the 38 listings, so almost nobody carries them in depth.