How many come up for sale each year?

Around seven tambour desks come to market on Sellingantiques in a year, from an archive of 65 listings. Thirty-nine different dealers have listed one, so almost every dealer who handles them has handled just one or two.

What's the difference between tambour and roll top?

A tambour is the slatted shutter itself. Roll top usually means the full-width curved version fitted to later office desks. In practice the two words overlap. Titles here apply both to the same piece, and cylinder joins them on the earlier Georgian desks.

Which woods do these desks come in?

Mahogany and oak carry the category, mahogany in 27 titles and oak in 20. Oak concentrates at the later end, with oak roll alone accounting for nine titles. Walnut appears in a few listings. Satinwood turns up on smaller writing pieces, and a single partridgewood desk of around 1800 is the one-off among the timbers.

Are Georgian tambour desks smaller than roll tops?

Generally yes in the archive. The George III entries are cylinder desks, tambour top desks and writing tables, several described as small. The pedestal and kneehole roll tops belong to the later end, and it's there that titles reach for Large and Huge.

Do any tambour desks carry a maker's name?

No established maker runs through this category. A few titles name a retailing firm or a designer period, and those appear only once or twice each. Where a name does show up, the listing tends to sit in the middle or upper part of the range.

What unusual forms turn up in this category?

Single sightings account for most of the oddities: an S-shaped roll top, a desk fitted for a typewriter, a tambour writing box made to sit on a desk top, and a cylinder desk with pull-out writing slides. Origins vary too. One desk is attributed to an American firm in Massachusetts, one American oak roll top is dated 1888 to 1900, and two Scottish examples appear in oak and mahogany.

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Antique Tambour Desks

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A writing desk closed by a flexible shutter of narrow wooden slats laid on canvas, sliding in grooves and rolling out of sight over the writing surface.