What is the difference between a milk jug and a cream jug?

On Sellingantiques, very little. Dealers use the two words interchangeably, and cream or creamer appears in around a quarter of titles, frequently alongside milk in the same description. Both describe the same thing: a small pouring vessel for the tea or coffee table, generally holding well under a pint.

How old are most of these jugs?

Nineteenth century is the commonest dated value, with thirty listings against thirteen for the 18th century and nine given as Georgian. Style labels like Georgian, Victorian and Regency overlap the centuries rather than narrowing them. Twentieth-century entries are thin, clustered in the 1900s, 1920s and 1930s. The latest piece in the samples is a solid silver one-pint jug of 1960.

Why do so many titles give a pattern name?

Because pattern is how this category identifies itself. The word appears in about a fifth of titles, and buyers more often meet a jug named by its printed or painted pattern than by its shape. Gaudy Welsh pottery arrives labelled by pattern rather than maker, with Pagoda, Gwent, Gower, Conwy, Grape, Harlech, Aberaeron and Bethesda across eleven listings. Pattern numbers such as 121, 421 and 2/1215 belong mainly to the early porcelain end.

Are they sold singly or in sets?

Singly, for the most part. Ten titles are plural, though, which is more than you might expect. Those include sets of three, a graduated set of four blue and white jugs and a suite of four serpent-handled jugs. Sets price above the single-jug median.

Which materials turn up?

Porcelain dominates, named in twenty-nine of ninety-three titles, with pottery and earthenware in thirteen. Within the earthenware there is copper and silver lustre, pearlware, creamware, black basalt and Pratt-ware. Silver accounts for only a few listings, but they carry the widest date spread of any material: 1802, 1822, the Victorian period and 1960.

Do foreign jugs appear alongside the English ones?

Occasionally. The samples include a Chinese famille rose cream jug put at about 1750, an Old Paris gilded milk jug of the 1830s, a French cream jug of around 1900 and two German porcelain examples. Continental porcelain also stands at the top of the sampled range, in the shape of a milk jug and cover of about 1760.