Antique Cruet Sets
A cruet set is a stand fitted with matched glass bottles and casters, made to carry oil, vinegar and condiments to the dining table.
Antique Cruet Sets
The frame is the piece that does the work: a footed or handled carrier holding bottles for oil and vinegar, and casters for pepper or sugar. Cruet frames became standard table furniture from the 18th century onward, made in silver and in plate, and sold sometimes with their glass and sometimes without.
What you'll meet most often on Sellingantiques is a silver plated frame with cut glass bottles, of Edwardian date. Plated or silver plated appears in 21 of the 43 titles, Edwardian in 17, and the dated field puts 18 listings in the 1900s alone. Multi-bottle table frames dominate, with three, six, seven and eight-bottle sets all named.
Around the core sit smaller branches. Sterling and hallmarked silver turns up in a handful, along with one early fused-plate three bottle decanter cruet. Two- and three-piece bachelor sets and condiment stands appear as a small group, and cranberry glass shows three times, the only colour named in any title.
Dating is mostly firm: 35 of the 43 listings carry a clean year, running 1800 to 1930. The rest give only a label such as Georgian, Victorian or 19th Century, and those read as approximations. Around seven sets are listed a year, spread across seventeen different dealers.
Where The Range Splits
Metal sets the floor and the ceiling. Plated frames fill the middle of the category, and the pieces at the top are the silver ones: a solid silver stand hallmarked London 1819, and a seven bottle silver set. London is the only assay office named anywhere in the evidence.
After that it's a question of how much is there. Bottle counts run from three up to six, seven and a large oval eight piece set, and the bigger counts cluster above the plated norm. Scale works the same way, with the two bachelor sets sitting near the bottom of the range.
Glass does the rest. Cut glass recurs through the middle and upper listings, and the entries singled out for their glass go further again, one hand cut in heavy lead crystal, another in cranberry flashed cut glass. A cased set, complete and matched, also sits near the top.
Antique Cruet Sets Retail Price Guide 2026
Typical UK retail prices for cruet sets, 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.
Cruet sets have been listed on Sellingantiques since 2008.
The Antique Cruet Sets Glossary
- Cruet stand or frame
- The metal or wooden carrier itself, listed sometimes with its glass and sometimes without.
- Silver plated
- Base metal with a silver surface, named in 21 of the 43 titles and the usual material in this category.
- Cut glass
- Bottles wheel-cut with facets or hobnail, the commonest glass description in these titles.
- Six bottle, seven bottle
- The count of fittings the frame carries, stated in titles from three pieces up to eight.
- Caster
- A pierced-top bottle for sifting sugar or pepper, one of the fittings a cruet frame holds.
- Cranberry flashed
- A thin skin of pink-red glass over clear, used on one of the three cranberry entries.
Antique Cruet Sets: Frequently Asked Questions
What are cruet bottles for?
Oil and vinegar in the taller bottles, condiments in the rest. The casters, with pierced tops, sift pepper or sugar.
The frame kept them together and let them be carried to the table as one piece. Bottle counts in these listings run three, six, seven and eight.
Are most cruet sets solid silver?
No. Silver plated or plated appears in 21 of the 43 titles, and plated frames fill the middle of the category.
Sterling and hallmarked silver is a small minority. One solid silver stand carries a London 1819 hallmark, and a seven bottle silver set sits with it at the top of the range.
What period do these sets date from?
The dated field runs 1800 to 1930. The 1900s account for 18 of the 35 listings with a clean year, so the category is heavily Edwardian.
The 1880s add six and the 1800s three, with single or paired entries for the 1850s, 1890s, 1910s and 1930s.
What is a bachelor cruet set?
A small set for one or two people, usually two or three pieces on a compact stand.
The term shows up twice in these titles, and both sit near the bottom of the range. Condiment set and condiment stand are used for similar small salt, pepper and mustard stands.
Do any cruet sets have coloured glass?
Cranberry glass turns up three times, once described as cranberry flashed, meaning a thin coloured skin over clear glass. It's the only colour named in any title.
Everything else is clear, most often cut glass, with one Art Deco set given as hand cut in heavy lead crystal.
Are all cruet frames made of metal?
Almost. Silver plate dominates, with sterling silver and one early fused-plate frame beyond that.
A single George III example is described as ebonised wood with silver mounted glass bottles, the only non-metal stand in the archive.