Antique Measures between £0 and £0
Metal vessels made to hold an exact volume, from a gill of spirit to a bushel of grain, stamped and checked so a buyer got what was paid for.
What Are Antique Measures?
Copper is the default metal in this category, with pewter a clear second and bronze third. What you'll meet most often is a handled copper measure or measuring jug, straight-sided or bellied, with a gallon capacity turning up more than any other. Victorian is the commonest period label attached to them.
Pewter makes up the second branch: baluster measures with thumbpiece handles, spouted and lidded forms, concave mugs, flagons and tankards. Scottish work contributes the tappit hen, a lidded measure of Scots pint capacity. Jersey and Guernsey cans and noggins surface from time to time, alongside Irish, French, Canadian and Isle of Man pieces.
Cast bronze is the official end of the category. The Imperial system adopted in Britain in 1824-26 obliged counties and boroughs to hold sets of standard measures, so these are struck with a capacity, a place and often a year: pecks, half-bushels and bushels for Lancaster, Somerset, Wilts, Accrington. A few listings are the apparatus rather than the measures, such as sets of borough and county standard weights.
Sets are as common as singles. Graduated runs of three, five, six and eight turn up regularly, and one copper spirit set ran to fourteen pieces. Agricultural measures form their own group, with harvest measures sampled at two, three and five gallons and numbered heavy copper grain measures.
What Sets Them Apart
Metal decides the range. Every listing at the top of the sample is cast bronze: an imperial peck, half-bushel or bushel, a set of them, or a set of standard weights. Copper and pewter measures, however good, sit well below that. A legible date and a named county or borough push a bronze standard further up again, and the wording on the highest-placed pieces reads exactly that way.
Completeness counts next. Graduated sets of five, six, seven and eight in copper or bronze occupy the upper half of what's been listed, while single small copper and pewter measures sit at the bottom. Size works the same way. "Large" appears in twelve titles and "heavy" in nine, and gallon, multi-gallon, peck, half-bushel and bushel pieces are consistently placed above pint and gill ones.
Marks do the rest. Titles carrying a struck maker's name or a place, and verification stamps such as a Cornwall verification or a VR mark, sit above otherwise similar unmarked measures. Dates are the exception rather than the rule: only 55 of 184 listings carry a clean year, so a legible one on the piece itself carries weight.
Retail Price Guide 2026
Typical UK retail prices for measures 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.
19th Century is the period label used most on Sellingantiques for measures, with Victorian next and 1800s third.
The Antique Measures between £0 and £0 Glossary
- Imperial
- The British capacity system in force from 1826, named in 24 titles, usually on official or verified pieces.
- Baluster measure
- A pewter measure with a swelling, vase-like body and a thumbpiece handle.
- Graduated set
- A run of measures in descending capacity; nine titles use the word, and sets run to eight and even fourteen pieces.
- Bushel
- Eight gallons dry measure, in ten titles, with half-bushels as common as full ones. A peck is two gallons, and turns up only on the cast bronze standards.
- Verification mark
- A stamp showing the measure was tested against a standard, such as a Cornwall verification or a VR mark.
- Haystack measure
- A wide-based, sloping-sided measure named for its silhouette, seen in copper, brass and Irish pewter.
- Bell metal
- A hard, high-tin bronze used for some Georgian measures.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which metal is most common?
Copper, which appears in more titles than any other metal listed on Sellingantiques. Pewter follows, then bronze, with brass some way behind.
Copper is the metal of the handled measure and the measuring jug, often in graduated sets. Bronze belongs almost entirely to official standards.
What capacities do these measures come in?
The named capacities run from half gill and gill through noggin, half-pint, pint and quart to gallon and multi-gallon sizes.
Dry measures go further: peck at two gallons, half-bushel, and full bushel at eight gallons. The largest to appear are bronze bushels and five-gallon copper harvest measures.
Why do bronze measures carry a place name?
The Imperial system adopted in Britain in 1824-26 required counties and boroughs to keep sets of cast standard measures for checking traders' vessels against.
That's why the wording reads "County of Wilts", "County of Somerset", "Borough of Accrington". Several of the sampled ones are struck with years in the 1830s, and others run into the 1880s.
Are sets more usual than single measures?
Sets are as common as singles in this category. Sampled titles read "set of three", "set of five", "set of 7 graduated", "set of 8", and one copper spirit set ran to fourteen pieces.
The larger graduated runs in copper or bronze sit in the upper half of the range.
How reliable are the dates given in listings?
Only 55 of the 184 listings carry a clean year, and those run from 1800 to 1950. The rest sit under broad labels, with "19th Century" alone accounting for 70 and Victorian for 30.
So a Georgian or 19th-century attribution is usually the dealer's period label rather than a year read off the metal.
Bronze standards are the exception, with legible years such as 1834, 1844, 1861 and 1887.
Do non-British measures turn up?
They do, as a small persistent minority. Scottish pewter appears in nine titles, including a crested tappit hen of Scots pint capacity.
Channel Islands work surfaces as Jersey cans and noggins and a Guernsey milk can. A French ferrat grain measure, a Canadian toleware quart and a set of nine copper and brass seer measures each appear once.