Antique Toby Jugs between £0 and £0
A Toby jug is an earthenware drinking jug modelled as a full figure, commonly a seated man in a tricorn hat holding a mug, made for tavern and household use.
What Toby Jugs Are
The form emerged in English potteries in the second half of the 18th century and was made in quantity through the 19th. The figure sits or stands with a mug in hand, and the corners of the tricorn hat usually form the pouring lip. The body is earthenware throughout.
What you'll meet most often on Sellingantiques is a 19th-century Staffordshire pottery jug. Staffordshire appears in around half the titles, and where a decade is given it clusters on the 1860s, 1870s and 1880s. Twelve titles run the two words together as Victorian Staffordshire.
Earlier pieces form a smaller strand: six listings dated to the 18th century and three more called Georgian, with titles running from c.1800 to c.1830. At the other end, the archive stops around 1930, where the figural Toby shades into the 20th-century character jug modelled as head and shoulders only.
Named models cut across all of it. The snuff taker is the most persistent, appearing seven times as the snuff taker, the snufftaker or Mr Snuff. Lord Nelson is the most frequent sitter with four titles, the Squire has three, and single appearances include Sairey Gamp, Farmer John, the Falconer and Hearty Good Fellow. Animals turn up more than the form suggests: two spaniels, a pair of dogs, Mr Punch's dog Toby and a Dutch Delft monkey.
Where The Range Sits
Age does most of the work. The 18th-century and Georgian jugs, the ones dated c.1800 to c.1830, sit in the upper part of the range, while undifferentiated 19th-century Staffordshire fills the lower part. That is the single clearest divide in the category.
After age comes the body. Listings that name prattware, pearlware, creamware, faience or delft sit high in the sample; those that say only pottery sit low. Continental pieces go the same way. Five appear in all, Dutch Delft, unattributed European faience and one Portuguese creamware jug, and every one of them lands in the upper half.
A named subject beats a generic one. Nelson, the snuff taker and the Squire generally sit above a plain Antique Staffordshire Toby Jug. Size is flagged hard in titles, two in capitals as MASSIVE and four more as large, against one small. Pairs help too: both pair listings sit above the middle.
Retail Price Guide 2026
Typical UK retail prices for toby jugs 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.
Continental jugs are the rarity on Sellingantiques: five in all, covering Dutch Delft, unattributed European faience and one Portuguese creamware jug.
The Antique Toby Jugs between £0 and £0 Glossary
- Toby jug
- A jug modelled as a full figure, with the corners of the hat usually forming the spout. The seated man with a mug is the standard, but the archive stretches to squires, snuff takers, dogs and a monkey.
- Character jug
- A jug modelled as head and shoulders only, rather than the whole figure. Several titles here use the term, and it marks the later end of the range.
- Staffordshire
- The English pottery district, and by a distance the commonest origin word in these titles, in roughly half of them. Often paired with Victorian.
- Delft
- Tin-glazed earthenware, blue-and-white or polychrome. Dutch in two of the three uses here, including an 18th-century monkey jug.
- Prattware
- Relief-moulded earthenware with a high-fired colour palette. It appears once in the archive, and named bodies like this sit high in the range.
- Hearty Good Fellow
- A traditional standing Toby model rather than a seated one, named once here. Worth knowing when a title gives the model and not the pose.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many Toby jugs come up for sale?
It's a thin category. Around seven come to market in a year on Sellingantiques, and 23 dealers have listed one at some point.
That works out at a single example for most dealers who handle them, so listings arrive in ones rather than groups.
What period do most of them date from?
The dated field runs from 1800 to 1930. The largest single entry is 19th Century, used 15 times, with Victorian, Georgian and 1800s used as broad labels elsewhere.
Where a decade is given, the 1860s, 1870s and 1880s carry the weight. Twenty-eight listings give a clean year.
Are Continental Toby jugs found in this category?
Five, out of the whole archive. They cover Dutch Delft, unattributed European faience and one Portuguese creamware jug dated about 1800.
All five sit in the upper half of the sampled range, and the Portuguese creamware jug sits at the very top of it.
Which characters are modelled most often?
The snuff taker leads, named seven times as the snuff taker, the snufftaker or Mr Snuff. Lord Nelson follows with four titles, one of them recorded as a water jug rather than a Toby proper.
The Squire appears three times. Single names include Lord Kitchener, Sairey Gamp, Farmer John, the Falconer and Hearty Good Fellow.
Do Toby jugs carry a maker's name?
Not in this archive. No maker names were drawn from the dealer descriptions at all, so attribution isn't part of how these jugs are usually described.
What the titles give instead is the district, most often Staffordshire, the body type, and the named model.
Scotland appears twice as an origin, once as a snufftaker in classic Scottish colours and once as a Portobello pottery jug of about 1830.
What unusual forms have turned up?
One-offs include a Toby jug teapot, a Toby fitted as a go-to-bed light, a tartan coat Toby, a Merry Christmas Toby and a female quart Toby.
Animal-form jugs recur more than the seated-man image suggests: two spaniels, a pair of Victorian Staffordshire dogs, Mr Punch's dog Toby and an 18th-century Dutch Delft monkey.